How reliable are the estimated days?
Every estimated day gets checked against CEF's real figure once they publish it, so this improves on its own over time.
Daily Basic Fuel Price vs. price built into the pump price
The blue line is each day's real import cost. The orange line is the cost that was priced into the pump price on that day. It's fixed when each month's price is set, and steps up or down on the price-change date. The gap between them is the daily over/under-recovery below.
Last 30 days. Current review period: —. The dashed vertical line marks where the previous one ended. Solid = CEF official. Dashed / hollow marker = estimated for a day CEF hasn't published yet.
Daily unit over/(under) recovery
Below the zero line = under-recovery (fuel cost more that day than what's priced in, which pushes the next price up). Above zero = over-recovery (pushes it down). Last 30 days. Each review period's average sets its own price change, so the dashed line splits the two.
USD/ZAR exchange rate
The rand's strength against the dollar is one of the two big drivers of the fuel price. A weaker rand (higher number) pushes fuel prices up, and a stronger rand pulls them down. The chart shows the last 30 days.
Daily breakdown
Dates with a dashed underline were estimated before CEF published them. Hover (or tap) the date to compare our estimate with CEF's official figure.
| Date | Source | Basic Fuel Price (c/l) | Unit over/(under) recovery (c/l) |
|---|
Background
Oil and the Strait of Hormuz
Extra context for the numbers above. None of it goes into the prediction. About a fifth of the world's oil normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz (EIA). Disruption there since the conflict with Iran began at the end of February 2026 has pushed oil prices up and made oil that can be shipped right away scarce.
Brent crude: futures vs. physical cargoes
The Brent price in the news is the futures price, for oil delivered in about two months. Dated Brent is the price of physical cargoes loading in the next few weeks. Usually the two are within a dollar or two of each other, but when supply is short, oil you can get now costs more. CEF's figures follow spot prices for physical petrol and diesel, so a wide gap means real import costs are higher than futures suggest. The estimates above are built from futures prices, re-fitted every hour to CEF's real figures.
Sources: ICE Brent futures via Yahoo Finance and U.S. Energy Information Administration, Europe Brent spot price.
Strait of Hormuz: ships visible on tracking (AIS)
Cargo ships and tankers the IMF's PortWatch saw crossing each day from their ship-tracking (AIS) signals. Ships with tracking switched off aren't counted. Each bar is one day, the line is the 7-day average, and the dashed line is the normal daily level in the year before the conflict. Dotted lines mark the start of the conflict and the ceasefire from the Islamabad Memorandum (17 June 2026) until fighting resumed (8 July).
This shows ships crossing openly, not how much oil gets through. Many tankers now cross with their tracking switched off, and PortWatch only counts ships that broadcast. Kpler, which adds these “dark” crossings back, put oil through the strait at about 14 million barrels a day in the week to 18 October 2026, around 82% of the level before the conflict. Adding the Saudi and UAE pipelines that carry oil around the strait to the Red Sea and Fujairah, oil leaving the Gulf was above pre-war levels, at more than 24 million barrels a day (Kpler via the Wall Street Journal). A low count here means few ships are crossing in the open; it doesn't mean the oil has stopped. Other trackers of dark crossings: Lloyd's List, Windward.
Source: IMF PortWatch.