Petrol price in South Africa and other countries

This is an archived report. The latest ranking is available here.

How many litres of petrol can you buy with an average salary in Africa and around the world?

Petrol price is dependent on many different factors such as crude oil prices on the international markets or taxes or margins established by gas stations’ owners. The value of 1 litre of petrol at the retail point of sale may change overnight, in some countries even by the hour.

Bearing in mind the fuel market instability, Picodi Analysis Team decided to analyse how many litres of petrol you can buy with the average wage in South Africa and other African countries. For this purpose, we researched the average fuel prices in the first half of 2019 and cross-referenced them with the latest average wages in respective countries. As our study shows, possessing a rich supply of natural resources does not always mean that petrol will be more accessible for an average consumer.

In search of cheaper petrol

In our region, the cheapest petrol can be found in Algeria — on average, for one litre of petrol you would have to pay 35 cents (converted from dinars). In contrast, filling the tank is the most expensive in Mauritius where the average price for one litre is $1.33.

In fact, the best ratio of petrol price to the average salary in Africa continent can be observed in South Africa. The average wages here is enough to buy 1215 litres of liquid gold respectively.

South Africans are followed by Namibians (2nd place with 986 litres) and Algerians (3rd place with 777 litres).

Lower in the ranking are countries like Uganda, Cameroon or Zambia. In these places, the average salary allows for buying no more than 200 litres of petrol, which is only one-fifth of the Africa ranking leader’s capacity. Still, the most disadvantaged are people from Madagascar who can buy only 42 litres of petrol with their average salary.

World’s petrol tycoons

In search of the highest indicator illustrating the amount of purchased petrol, we analysed prices and wages in over 100 countries on 6 continents. The first place in the ranking goes to Venezuela where 1 litre of petrol costs $0.000000002. With the average salary amounting to around $29 we could buy… over 14 billions of litres. But do the citizens of a country haunted by crisis and inflation have reasons to triumph?

The actual leaders of the ranking are the Persian Gulf countries. In Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the price of 1 litre is around $0.4–0.6 and with the average salary we can buy there from 4900 to 6500 litres of petrol.

The high positions of countries like the United States and Canada can be explained not only by high salaries but also the amount of extracted oil. Switzerland and Luxembourg stand out with high incomes only.

The lowest amount of petrol can be bought in Cuba (26 litres), Madagascar (42 litres) and Tajikistan (131 litres).

One interesting example is Nigeria. Although it is a country extracting and exporting considerable amounts of oil and with one of the lowest prices per litre ($0.40), the really low average wage amounting to $201 does not allow its citizens for buying a big amount of petrol (501 litres).

With increasing petrol prices, leaving your car in the garage might be a good idea. Picodi allows you to travel with Avis, Europcar and Qatar Airways, and get 5% of your spendings through cashback.

Methodology

This report uses the average net wages according to the latest available data provided by offices for national statistics or relevant ministries. The average prices for the first half of 2019 in over 100 countries are based on data from globalpetrolprices.com and other local sources. In order to obtain the number of litres, we divided the average wage by the average price of 1 litre of petrol. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate for the last 90 days.

Public use

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