The diesel price hike for May gets a minor correction that'll save drivers a few bucks

On Monday, 4 May, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources published the official fuel price adjustments for May. It delivered some pretty bad news all around, though it was the country’s diesel drivers who felt the sting with a R6.19/l increase. Fortunately, the CEF has confirmed an error in its initial calculations and reissued the adjustments with a smaller (but still painful) diesel price hike.

We’ll take what we can get

Evidently, the CEF forgot to take the government’s R3.93/l relief for diesel prices into full consideration, only knocking R3/l off the price. As of Tuesday, 5 May, the energy company has dropped the price of the increase by 93 cents per litre (92c/l when rounding up). This has now been reflected in our fuel price coverage for May.

That goes for the country’s fuel pumps, too. Rather than paying R32/l+ at the pumps today as we initially expected, the prices will be somewhat more bearable. Diesel 0.05% prices will now set drivers back R31.17/l, while Diesel 0.005% prices are now set at R31.88/l. It’s not quite a saving grace, but it’s something.

Petrol drivers may be wondering why they aren’t receiving any special attention. Unfortunately, the CEF was not mistaken on that front, which leaves the R3.27c/l increase standing. The government recently introduced a R3/l cut to the general fuel levy to help ease the rising costs. This was raised to R3.93/l to combat the even larger price hikes for diesel. This relief won’t stick around forever, and will be halved come June, and gone entirely by July.

The table below accurately reflects the fuel price adjustments made at the pumps this morning, 6 May.