Nelson Mandela Bay’s hard-done-by businesses and residents will benefit from a drop in the regional petrol price which comes into effect on Friday, 27 December. Picture: Jacques Nelles
Motorists in the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) metropolitan area will finally get relief at the pumps when an expected drop of a whopping 80 cents to 84 cents/litre in petrol prices comes into effect on Friday, 27 December.
The controversial exemption of the metro from October and November’s petrol price cuts resulted from a drawn-out tanker saga, which affected the Port of Port Elizabeth.
In June, a tanker carrying LPG gas crashed into a crucial gantry normally used to transfer fuel to trucks for distribution to petrol stations while it was being piloted into the harbour.
This prompted the Liquid Fuel Wholesalers Association (LFWA) to approach Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister, Gwede Mantashe, to exempt the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and surrounding areas from fuel price reductions as an interim measure until the port became operational again.
LFWA CEO, Peter Morgan, explained at the time that with the bunker out of commission, liquid fuels wholesalers had to fetch petrol and diesel from the East London harbour.
He stated that wholesalers had already been trucking in 88 million litres of petrol and diesel a month at extra cost, including for extra tankers.
Transnet’s delays in fixing the gantry led to an application to have the metro rezoned to allow the liquid fuel wholesalers to recover the extra transport costs, resulting in a significantly higher petrol price for residents.
To allow the liquid fuel wholesalers to recover the extra transport costs, Mantashe’s rezoning of the Nelson Mandela Bay region as an “inland” instead of a coastal zone resulted in a significantly higher petrol price for residents.
The Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) announced on Friday, 13 December, that repairs to the damaged fuel gantry on the southeast side of the port were completed.
The first fuel tanker dropped anchor in the harbour on Wednesday, 18 December, with the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Department confirming that the petrol price reduction will come into effect on 27 December.
The long-overdue drop in fuel prices comes after a settlement in the Gqeberha High Court when the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber took Mantashe to court.
In papers before the court, the business chamber’s CEO, Denise van Huyssteen, said businesses in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro were suffering economic losses of about R50 million a month as a result of Mantashe’s decision to implement revised transport tariffs as part of the region’s petrol price.
“We note that this pricing structure is supposed to be temporary in nature, and once the fuel berth is repaired, the area will return to its former allotted zone. We, however, estimate that this decision is causing an irrecoverable direct loss to the local economy of approximately R50 million per month.
“By way of example, the October unleaded 95 petrol price decrease was supposed to have been 114 cents per litre, but due to the rezoning of Nelson Mandela Bay, this price decrease was only 31c per litre, representing a loss of 83c per litre.
“In November, the price of unleaded 95 petrol increased by 25c a litre, but due to the inland zoning this was increased by 83c a litre for consumers in Nelson Mandela Bay,” Van Huyssteen said in her affidavit, as per Daily Maverick.
The Citizen reported earlier this week that preliminary data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) points to a possible increase in petrol and diesel prices.
The current trend in under-recoveries implies that these prices will likely grow into larger increases between now and month-end — possibly in the region of 20 cents for 93 unleaded petrol.
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