Yesterday the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority announced the new diesel and petrol prices for October after a day’s delay. As they have done for the past couple of months or so, they announced an increase. This prompted an angry response from motorists and citizens in general who questioned the rationale for the monthly fuel increases. This is because despite price falls on the international market fuel prices in Zimbabwe have consistently been going up.

Below are the monthly prices of petrol and diesel as gazetted by ZERA since the beginning of the year. As you can see there has been a steady increase in prices even when there are significant falls on the international market. Also the ZWL prices issued by ZERA are pretty much useless as fuel is sold exclusively in USD by most service stations.

Month	Diesel Price/ Litre in USD	Diesel Price/ Litre in ZWL	Petrol Prices/ Litre in USD	Petrol Prices/ Litre in ZWL
January 2021	$1.23	$100.91	$1.21	$99.35
February 2021	$1.27	$105.58	$1.26	$104.82
March 2021	$1.32	$110.41	$1.30	$109.17
April 2021	$1.32	$111.77	$1.34	$112.96
May 2021	$1.32	$111.43	$1.33	$112.62
June 2021	$1.30	$110.54	$1.33	$112.55
July 2021	$1.30	$110.54	$1.33	$112.05
August 2021	$1.33	$114.29	$1.37	$117.07
September 2021	$1.34	$115.15	$1.38	$118.42
October 2021	$1.38	$122.13	$1.40	$123.71

The only consolation in all this is the fact that most service station have been unable to sell at these prices due to low demand. Some even sell at prices that 10 US cents lower than the gazetted prices in a bid to attract customers.

Click here to see current fuel and LP gas prices