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Cape Town - If one goes by the latest information from the Department of Energy, fuel prices could increase in January, according to independent agricultural economist Fanie Brink.
He said, according to this information, the price of gasoline 93 (ULP & LRP) in Gauteng could possibly increase by 47.2 cents per litre on Wednesday 4 January and the price of diesel with a 0.005% sulphur content could go up by 34.9 cents per litre.
"The reasons for these price increases can largely be attributed to the much higher international petroleum product prices after members of the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and the 11 countries that are not members of the organisation - including Russia - finally reached an agreement to place a limit on the production of crude oil after years of struggling to achieve this objective," said Brink.
"The agreement has caused the price of Brent crude oil to increase to almost $56 a barrel over the last couple of weeks. This has increased the international petroleum product prices at some of the largest international refineries at the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Singapore and the Arabian Gulf on which the landed cost of domestic fuel prices are based."
Brink added that the rand/dollar exchange rate had only a small positive impact on the prices in December 2016.
