How Reliable Are South Africa's Mid-Month Fuel Price Predictions?

Every month on this site, we publish an early fuel price projection based on tracking data published roughly two to three weeks before the DMPR's official announcement — then, once the real figure lands, we go back and check how close the projection was. Most sites that cover fuel prices don't do this part, because it's not flattering. This is the honest version: four months of real comparisons, projected number against confirmed number, no rounding in our favour.

The track record, month by month

July: the one month we undershot in the motorist's favour

July's mid-month projection, built around the short-lived US-Iran ceasefire, pointed to a saving of roughly R1.23-R1.27/l on petrol once the fuel levy reinstatement was factored in. The confirmed outcome beat that on every grade — petrol 93 landed at R25.94/l against a projected ~R26.85/l, a full 91 cents better than expected. The reason wasn't the ceasefire itself; it was the Slate Levy, which wasn't included in the mid-month figure and ended up dropping from 157.74c/l to 113.94c/l as the fund's cumulative under-recovery balance improved. That's the general shape of why these projections miss: the Basic Fuel Price (crude plus the rand) is reasonably trackable in real time, but the Slate Levy is a separate, self-adjusting mechanism that often isn't locked in until much closer to month-end.

September and October: the Slate Levy worked against motorists instead

Two months later, the same mechanism worked in the opposite direction. September's early projection had petrol rising a modest 66c/l; the confirmed figure came in at R1.34/l — roughly double — because the Slate Levy rose 21.90c/l (from 61.38c/l to 83.28c/l) instead of staying flat. October repeated the pattern on a bigger scale: the mid-month projection had petrol 93 rising R1.87/l, but Brent crude kept climbing past the ~$97 the projection assumed, all the way to around $101, and the confirmed increase came in at R3.12/l — R1.25/l worse than projected, with diesel following a similar gap.

November: watching the projection itself move mid-month

November 2026 is actually a live example of the same problem happening before any DMPR figure exists at all. The Central Energy Fund's own early-October reading had petrol 93 running about R4.29/l over-recovered for November; its mid-October reading, for the same month, showed only about R2.68/l — a swing of roughly R1.61/l in three weeks, before the month is even confirmed. See our November 2026 fuel price predictions for the full side-by-side of both readings. The CEF itself describes this daily tracking as "unaudited and indicative only" — which is exactly what this kind of swing demonstrates.

What this means if you're using these projections to budget

Treat the early-month number as a direction and a rough order of magnitude, not a figure to plan a tank-fill around. If the projection shows a large increase coming, budget for it — the direction has been right every month so far, even when the size was off. If you're deciding whether to top up before month-end or wait, the safer assumption through 2026 has been that late-breaking Slate Levy movement is at least as likely to make things worse as better, so there's no clear edge in waiting out a projected increase on the chance it shrinks.

Frequently asked questions

Figures above are drawn from this site's own published monthly predictions and adjustment-explained articles, each sourced at the time from South African fuel-price tracking data and the official DMPR announcements. November 2026 figures are projections, not yet confirmed — see the November predictions article for the latest reading and the date it was taken.