We had grown so much accustomed to ZERA’s weekly fuel price adjustments which were almost always price increases. However, for the second time, ZERA has announced that fuel prices will remain unchanged for the week starting Monday 21 October i.e this coming Monday.

This means fuel prices will be unchanged for the third week running. Diesel will still be selling $15.64 ZWL per litre and petrol at $14.97. Usually, whenever ZERA announces a price adjustment businesses promptly hike the prices of their goods citing fuel increases as a reason.

Without fuel to blame the price increases this week have been still concerning but far less than the ones we saw in the last two weeks of September. However, we have noticed that fuel queues have gotten longer at most service stations.

Fuel prices have changed but they actually remain the same

	Diesel ZWL$/Litre	Petrol E20 ZWL$/Litre
FOB	0.5991	0.5501
Exchange Rate	13	13
Duty(ZIMRA Exchange Rate-15.4436)	4.1884	4.3714
Oil Company Margin	0.8448	0.82881
Dealer Margin	1.0461	1.0269
Maximum Pump Price	15.64	14.97

Above are next week’s prices, effective 21 October 2019. Below price from 6 October which are the same as those of this week

	Diesel ZWL$/Litre	Petrol E20 ZWL$/Litre
FOB	0.6038	0.5579
Exchange Rate	13	13
Duty(ZIMRA Exchange Rate-15.2611)	4.1676	4.3729
Oil Company Margin	0.8273	0.7920
Dealer Margin	1.0231	0.9795
Maximum Pump Price	15.64	14.97

As you can see fuel prices actually went down but this decrease was offset by a movement in the exchange rate and an increase in dealer margins. This means that in real terms the price of fuel actually went down.