PETROL AND DIESEL PRICES SET FOR A DRAMATIC DROP

The price of petrol, diesel and paraffin will decrease on Wednesday, 7^th January 2009, in one of the biggest drops we’ve seen in recent years. Unleaded 95 will cost R6.01 a litre inland and R5.77 a litre at the coast. Diesel comes down to R6.54 per litre inland and R6.39 per litre at the coast. This is thanks to a Brent crude oil price that has been hovering around US$40 a barrel lately. A year ago it was US$100 a barrel.

Not since May 2006 have we seen similar levels of fuel pricing and the AA is as overjoyed as probably the rest of us.

“We’re very pleased to see this development as it bodes well for decreased motoring costs and the subsequent knock-on effects in 2009,” said AA Head of Public Affairs Rob Handfield-Jones. “There is often unhappiness from certain quarters that the petrol price seems to go up massively but rarely comes down. The last three months have shown that if the exchange rate and oil price work in our favour, the motorist certainly benefits.”

What this means to you the ordinary motorist is that if you are driving a Nissan X-Trail in Gauteng you can fill up for R390.65, or a Toyota Hilux D-4D in Port Elizabeth you can expect to fill up for R511.20. a BMW 320i will fill up for R363.51 in Durban while a Honda Civic will cost just R300.50 to feed from an empty tank. Mind you these figures are just approximations that assume a completely dry tank, which means the car was so empty you would have had to push the car into the petrol station.