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Blog: 6 June 2016 (The cost of the latest petrol price increase)
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Related Topics |
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In today's blog we look to answer the following question. How much more will it cost South African's (consumers, businesses) to fill up their vehicles after the latest 52c/l increase in the petrol price and 76c/l increase in diesel that came into effect recently. We will make a few rough assumptions to calculate the amount of money South Africans will have to cough up to fill up all registered vehicles in South Africa.
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According to statistics published by Enatis there are roughly 10.4million registered self propelled vehicles in South Africa as at end of May 2016. The table below gives the breakdown of the number of registered self-propelled vehicles per fuel type per province. As can be seen from Table 1 below the largest concentration of vehicles is found in Gauteng. As we mentioned in our Commute Time article overcrowded roads in Gauteng is leading to long commute times for Gautengers.
Table 1: Number of registered vehicles per province
Description |
GP |
KZN |
WC |
EC |
NC |
NW |
MP |
LP |
FS |
Petrol |
3 266 687 |
1 101 383 |
1 339 416 |
537 162 |
157 197 |
379 800 |
500 743 |
430 894 |
365 950 |
Diesel |
826 181 |
1 101 383 |
327 928 |
161 476 |
66 102 |
121 814 |
200 044 |
151 737 |
119 484 |
Total |
4 092 868 |
2 202 766 |
1 667 344 |
698 638 |
223 299 |
501 614 |
700 787 |
582 631 |
485 434 |
Now that we know how many vehicles are registered in each province and what fuel type they using, we can calcualte proportions for petrol vs diesel per province. Once that is done, in order to determine the overall increase in costs to South African's that is caused by the latest fuel price increases, we need to estimate the number of litres of petrol and or diesel it takes to fill up all these vehicles in Table 1.
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Table 2 to the right shows the percentage of each vehicle type to the overall total number of registered self-propelled vehicles. We also estimate the size of each vehicle types fuel tank.
From this we can then calculate the number of litres of fuel required to fill up all the registered vehicles per province. Once we have that, we apply the ratio of petrol vs diesel and then multiply it by the increase in this specific fuel type to get the overall cost to South Africans to fill up all registered vehicles per fuel type. The sum of overall costs for petrol and diesel is then the overall cost to South Africans. |
Table 2:Contribution of different vehicle types to total number of registered vehicles
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The overall additional cost to South Africans to fill up all registered vehicles once after the latest petrol and diesel price increases amounts to R348 804 009. And as we mentioned in one of our previous posts its likely that these vehicles would be filled up once a week. If this is the case the overall increase in costs to South Africans per month amounts to R1 395 216 037 and assuming the fuel prices remain the same for the next 12months the increased fuel prices would cost South Africans R16 742 592 450 a year more. That amounts to 0.42% of South Africa's total economy that will spent more on fuel due to the latest fuel price increases.
Table 3 below shows the additional fuel costs per province assuming all registered vehicles are filled up once. Gauteng paying the bulk (35.6%) of the additional costs as most vehicles are registered in Gauteng, with KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape paying 21.6% and 14.5% respectively
Table 3: Additional costs per province caused by latest fuel price increases
GP |
KZN |
WC |
EC |
NC |
NW |
MP |
LP |
FS |
TOTAL |
124 102 990 |
75 199 259 |
50 446 209 |
21 445 737 |
7 040 009 |
15 473 016 |
21 999 091 |
18 103 305 |
14 994 394 |
348 804 009 |
