Every month the fuel price makes the news, the repo rate gets a headline for a day, and then everyone goes back to work. This is the version that matters if you run a business: what actually changed, and what it does to what you keep.
Where things stand
| Indicator | Now | Change |
|---|---|---|
| SARB policy rate | 7.00% | Held, 23 July |
| Prime lending rate | 10.50% | Unchanged |
| Headline CPI (year-on-year) | 5.0% | Up, June figure |
| Petrol 95 ULP, inland | R25.58/ℓ | Down 52c |
| Diesel 500ppm wholesale, inland | R26.16/ℓ | Up R1.38 |
Fuel figures are the DMRE adjustment effective 5 August. Rates and inflation come from the South African Reserve Bank.
Diesel now costs more than petrol
That is the part worth stopping on. Inland diesel at R26.16 is running 58 cents above petrol 95 at R25.58. For most of the last decade it was the other way around, and a lot of pricing assumptions were quietly built on the old order.
The split happened because the two are priced on different things. Petrol came down partly because the DMRE cut the slate levy from R1.14 to 61 cents. Diesel did not get that relief and absorbed the underlying move instead.
If you read “petrol drops 52c” and relaxed, and your business runs on a bakkie, a delivery vehicle or a generator, you got the opposite of the news you thought you got.
What it costs you
Round numbers, because the exact figure depends on your route and your vehicle. A one-tonne bakkie doing collections is usually somewhere near 11ℓ/100km.
- Two supplier runs a week, 40km round trip.That is roughly 370km a month, about 41ℓ of diesel. The R1.38 increase costs you about R56 a month — annoying, not structural.
- Daily deliveries, 60km a day, six days a week.Around 1,560km a month, roughly 172ℓ. That is about R237 a month more than July, for exactly the same work.
- A generator through load-shedding.A 5kVA unit burns roughly 1.5ℓ/hour under load. Four hours a day for twenty days is 120ℓ — about R166 a month more than July.
None of those numbers will close a business. The problem is that they arrive together, they are invisible unless you are tracking fuel as its own expense line, and they come out of margin you have already priced away.
What to actually do about it
The honest answer is that you cannot control the diesel price, so the question is only whether you notice it in time to reprice.
- Check whether delivery is priced or absorbed. If you quote free delivery above a certain basket size, that threshold was set against a different diesel price. It may now be below your cost.
- Consolidate runs before raising prices. Two collections a week instead of three is a bigger saving than any price increase you can push through without losing customers.
- Watch 2 September. That is the next DMRE adjustment, first Wednesday as always. If diesel moves again in the same direction, that is a trend rather than a month, and it justifies a real conversation about pricing.
On the rate side, nothing moved
The MPC held at 7.00% on 23 July, so prime stays at 10.50%. If you are carrying stock finance, an overdraft or vehicle finance, your repayment is the same this month as last.
Inflation at 5.0% is the number to keep half an eye on. It sits inside the Reserve Bank’s 3–6% target band but has been drifting up, and the MPC vote was not unanimous — two members wanted a hike. A business planning on rate cuts arriving soon is planning on something the Reserve Bank has not signalled.
The short version
Petrol fell and diesel rose, so if you move goods your costs went up in a month the headlines called relief. Borrowing costs are flat. Inflation is drifting toward the top half of the band.
We publish this monthly, after the DMRE adjustment. The next one lands in early September. If you want these numbers applied to your own figures rather than to a generic bakkie, Stoki’s advisor reads the same live SARB and fuel data against your actual expenses.