The Two Fuel Markets Most People Don’t Know Exist
A customer pushed back on our fuel surcharge this week. His message was direct: “Or you could consider changing your diesel supplier as I find the prices ridiculous. Yesterday we bought at R20.18 a litre.”
It is a completely fair question. And the answer to it explains something most people outside the transport industry have never had reason to think about — because until now, it has never mattered this much.
There are two diesel markets in South Africa. They operate side by side. They price the same product at very different numbers. And right now, they are moving at very different speeds.
Market One: The Pump Price You See
The price at the forecourt is a government-regulated number. It is set by the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources via a monthly gazette — the Basic Fuel Price mechanism — and it adjusts on the first Wednesday of each month.
The R20.18 our customer paid is that regulated price. It reflects conditions as the government calculated them at the start of March. It has not yet moved for April. It will move on 1 April — significantly — but until then, anyone filling up at a retail forecourt is paying March’s price.
That regulated price is what consumers, small businesses, and most companies see. It is the number reported in the media. It is the number people use when they think about what fuel costs.
It is not the number that runs a refrigerated courier fleet.
Market Two: The Wholesale Price You Don’t See
Fleet operators of any meaningful size do not buy diesel at the forecourt. They buy from licensed bulk wholesale suppliers — companies that purchase from refineries and import terminals and supply directly to commercial accounts.
The wholesale price is not gazette-controlled. It moves with replacement cost in real time.
Here is the arithmetic that wholesale suppliers face: every litre of diesel they hold in their tanks today was purchased at a certain price. When they go back to replenish tomorrow, they pay the current market rate — which, given where Brent crude is sitting and what the Hormuz disruption has done to global supply chains, is materially higher than what they paid last month. A wholesale supplier cannot sell today’s inventory at last month’s acquisition cost while simultaneously paying more to restock. That is not a margin play. That is arithmetic.
When our supplier invoiced us at R25 per litre this week, that is not an anomaly. That is the wholesale market reflecting what it actually costs to source diesel in South Africa right now — weeks before the gazette catches up.
The Gap That Opens Before April
This is the part most people miss: the gap between the two markets is not a future risk. It is open right now.
Fleet operators are already paying April’s price. Retail customers are still paying March’s price. On 1 April, the gazette closes that gap — and every consumer in South Africa sees simultaneously what transport operators have been absorbing for weeks.
The Central Energy Fund publishes daily under-recovery data — the calculation that feeds the gazette. As of mid-March, the diesel 50ppm under-recovery sits at 715 cents per litre. Add the mandatory fuel levy increases confirmed in the 2026 Budget (General Fuel Levy, Carbon Levy, and RAF levy, totalling 21 cents per litre), and the projected April wholesale price is approximately R25.57–R25.75 per litre.
Against our January baseline of R18.45 per litre, that is a 39–44% increase in our primary input cost — already partially in effect, landing fully on 1 April.
Why There Is No Alternative Supplier
The other question our customer’s message implied: couldn’t we just find a cheaper wholesaler?
Every licensed wholesale diesel supplier in Gauteng draws from the same upstream import terminals and refining assets. There is no separate pricing tier available to fleet operators at our scale. What varies between wholesalers right now is not price — it is whether they can fulfil your order at all.
Our supplier is already requiring 24-hour advance orders with prepayment. Agricultural wholesalers OVK, NWK, and VKB have begun rationing diesel sales to farmers. Petrol stations across five provinces ran out of 50ppm diesel this week. This is a supply constraint, not a commercial one. South Africa’s strategic fuel reserve covers approximately two weeks of national consumption — against a global benchmark of 90 days. When demand pulls forward (businesses filling every available tank before April’s increase), a two-week reserve cannot absorb it.
There is no cheaper option to switch to. There is only the market.
What This Means for Your Surcharge
Our Fuel Surcharge Policy exists precisely because of moments like this. The policy sets out trigger thresholds based on the wholesale price increase above our baseline — not the gazette price, not the forecourt price, but the actual price we are invoiced by our supplier.
At the current wholesale price of approximately R25 per litre — R6.55 above our R18.45 baseline — we are operating in Tier 3 under the policy:
- Gauteng: R20 per delivery stop
- Western Cape: R20 per delivery stop
The surcharge appears as a separate line item on your invoice. It is not a permanent rate change. The policy specifies that it deactivates automatically when the wholesale price returns below the trigger threshold for two consecutive billing cycles. If the price drops, the surcharge drops with it.
The full policy — including all tier thresholds, the calculation methodology, and the deactivation conditions — is at thefrozenfoodcourier.co.za/fuel-surcharge-policy/.
The Bigger Picture
The fuel price gap is one part of a larger set of pressures converging on South Africa’s cold chain and food supply simultaneously — including three concurrent livestock disease events affecting every affordable protein category, and Eskom’s 8.76% tariff increase landing on the same day as the April gazette.
We have covered that full picture in depth on ColdChainSA: A River Full of Crocodiles — South Africa’s Converging System Crisis and the Cold Chain at the Centre of It. If you want to understand what is coming for food prices and supply chains through Q2 and Q3 2026, that article names every pressure and sources every number.
For your deliveries specifically: if you have questions about what the surcharge means for your account, or want to talk through your April invoice before it arrives, contact us directly. We will give you a straight answer.
Fuel Surcharge Policy: thefrozenfoodcourier.co.za/fuel-surcharge-policy/
Full cold chain industry analysis: coldchainsa.com
