The price of diesel in South Africa has grown significantly over the last ten years, resulting in a high cost of living due to the reliance on road transport for foodstuffs and amenities deliveries.
A key reason for this is that diesel is unregulated in South Africa at the retail level, leading to prices varying between stations.
That said, the government still sets the wholesale price at which diesel is sold to retailers.
In October 1995, the price of a litre of diesel was R1.55 inland and R1.45 on the coast, while 30 years later these prices have increased to R19.39 and R18.63, respectively.
This translates to around 1,151% and 1,184% price increases over the three decades since 1995.
It should be noted that the concurrent increase in inflation during this period was only 417%, meaning diesel has seen almost triple the growth in price.
Contributing to this has been the 307% increase in Brent Crude oil prices and the weakening of the rand over time.
South Africa has also become increasingly reliant on oil imports over the last three decades due to local production problems.
Local refining capacity increased in the 1990s and early 2000s but stagnated entering the mid-2000s and onwards.
This, at the same time, as demand for fuel continued to grow.
South Africa’s fuel imports over the last 12 years have reflected this, with it jumping 24% annually, and by 2022, the year saw 12 billion litres of refined fuel imported, up from only five billion in 2013.
Conversely, local diesel production has seen a steep decline, with it falling from 8.7 billion litres to just 135,000 litres.
The primary cause of this decline has been the shutdown of local refineries, the result of these facilities being financially unstable due to high operating costs.
Impact of transport reliance
South Africa has become increasingly reliant on trucks and other road transportation for the movement of goods around the country.
This has created a greater demand for the fuel at the same time as local production, which is all but stalling.
The deterioration of South Africa’s rail infrastructure hasn’t helped the situation either, driving more companies to use diesel-powered trucks and delivery vans rather than trains for shipping.
This can be seen in the volumes of cargo Transnet has carried annually, with it moving 82.23 of the 563.14 million metric tonnes of freight carried in the country in 1995, but only 160 million metric tonnes in the 2025 financial year.
The massive increase in road traffic has also resulted in faster deterioration of already worse-for-wear roads and a marked rise in congestion and road accidents.
The massive rise in road inefficiency due to Transnet’s logistics failures has, according to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), cost the country around R1 billion per day in missed trade opportunities.
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