Filling up to cost more
03 August 2020 | Energy
According to the minister of mines and energy, Tom Alweendo, “despite huge under-recoveries for last month, the fuel prices were kept unchanged,” with under-recoveries recorded for both petrol and diesel landed in Walvis Bay.
Based on this increase, fuel pump prices at Walvis Bay (port of entry) will be N$11.35 p/l for petrol and N$11.83 p/I for diesel, with fuel pump prices countrywide being adjusted accordingly.
The minister also announced that the dealer margin for fuel service stations that was adjusted in May by 50c per litre to 160c per litre, will be discontinued.
This adjustment was done as a relief measure for fuel service station owners and in consideration of the national lockdown and decreased economic activities.
“The relief was granted for a period of three months. Now that the country has largely started to open up internally, fuel consumption volumes have started to rise again, going from about 56 million litres to over 80 million litres per month,” the minister said.
He said that although this is not the usual peak of demand, the situation has improved.
Road user charges
The ministry of finance approved a 4% adjustment of the road user charges, which is also part of the price of fuel products.
“To this end, the levy on fuel products, which is collected by the Road Fund Administration, will be adjusted by 5c per litre to 141c per litre. This adjustment will also become effective on 5 August 2020,” the minister said.
According to Alweendo, the exchange rate of N$16.7844 per US dollar indicates that the Namibia dollar has gained against the US dollar, meaning it has become cheaper to exchange currency for importing fuel to Namibia.
In terms of the product cost indicators, one barrel of Unleaded Petrol 95 (ULP95) traded at an average of U$46.849, while a barrel of Diesel 50ppm traded at an average of U$49.326.
Indications are that the average barrel price increased in July 2020. “This shows that global demand may be gaining momentum despite the effects of Covid-19,” the minister said.
He added that in terms of the market indicators related to freight rates, or the cost of shipping petroleum products from the international markets to Namibia, the average cost has gone down by approximately 20%.
“On average, shipping costs dropped from 98.677c to 78.173c per litre on petrol from last month to the current review. In addition, on average the freight rates dropped from 108.293c to 85.994c per litre on diesel from last month to the current review.”