Petrol expected to decrease by one cent

AFTER a nine cents decline early this month, petrol is set for another decrease next month.

The Automobile Association (AA) has predicted a one cent per litre reduction.

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The price of diesel will, however, rise by 20 cents per litre and illuminating paraffin is expected to increase by 25 cents.

‘After several weeks of stability, international oil prices have started to climb again, with a slight peak in the first week of May before a modest pullback.

‘Although there is still a re-balancing of global supply and demand taking place in oil markets, the current variations are beginning to more closely resemble the picture we saw before the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘This suggests that normal market forces are increasingly gaining the upper hand over last year’s disruptive gluts which led to astonishing sub-zero prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil,’ said AA spokesperson, Layton Beard.

Beard said oil prices are also still vulnerable to lockdown measures caused by resurgences of Covid-19, in particular new variants of the virus.

He said the surprising strength of the rand is helping to offset the oil price gains.

‘The oil-versus-rand see-saw will likely continue through the rest of May, and the month-end picture may be somewhat different from what’s currently being seen,’ said Beard.

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