If you were hoping to find good news here, you haven’t been paying attention. Oil prices around the globe are spiking — and it’s all thanks to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. The strain put on oil reserves has had what you might call an adverse effect on South Africa’s fuel prices, with the Central Energy Fund predicting a massive R6/l diesel price hike this April. It’s not looking much better for petrol, which faces a nearly R4/l increase.
A terrible April Fool’s joke
There’s nothing to worry about yet. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), responsible for adjusting South Africa’s fuel prices every month, typically does this on the first Wednesday of a new month. That leaves a little over two weeks for oil prices to (hopefully) return to a reasonable figure. It won’t. But we can dream.
The figures below are supplied by the CEF, an energy company that tracks those economic factors that influence the price of fuel. Using this, it offers Saffas an accurate glimpse behind the fuel price curtain. It relies on the average Rand/US Dollar exchange rate as well as global oil prices to predict what’s coming for motorists.
Check back with Stuff regularly to keep up to date on the current fuel price predictions for April 2026.
Here are the petrol and diesel price predictions (so far) for April 2026:
- Petrol 93: increase of 362 cents per litre (R3.62)
- Petrol 95: increase of 398 cents per litre (R3.98)
- Diesel 0.05%: increase of 663 cents per litre (R6.63)
- Diesel 0.005%: increase of 675 cents per litre (R6.75)
- Illuminating Paraffin: increase of 853 cents per litre (R8.53)
