A viral video circulated on Saturday evening, displays an Engen petrol in Umhlatuzana, Durban, selling diesel for approximately R29,85.
Image: Video screengrab
WE ARE in for a rough ride in South Africa. South African motorists are set for financial depression and real concern at the petrol stations in April, as the ongoing Middle East conflict, a weaker rand, will push up the price of fuel significantly.
A viral video circulated on Saturday evening (March 21), displays an Engen petrol in Umhlatuzana, Durban, selling diesel for approximately R29,85. Shocking and unheard of.
According to BusinessTech the latest data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) showed that petrol prices are now building for the single biggest jump in South Africa’s history, more than doubling the previous record.
The biggest driver of the coming price hikes is oil, which has surged following the United States and Israel’s criminal bombardment of Iran.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now last week reported that global oil and natural gas prices are soaring after Israel bombed a massive natural gas reserve in Iran, the largest in the world.
At one point today, the price of oil reached $118 a barrel, a 60% jump since the US and Israel launched its war on Iran.
In a post online, a now deeply deranged Trump threatened to blow up the entire South Pars gas field if Iran continued to target the Qatari facility.
Trump also claimed the US, quote, “knew nothing” about the Israeli attack on the South Pars gas field, but Trump lied as The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump approved the strike to pressure Iran to open up the critical Strait of Hormuz.
The mess is the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait is one of the world’s most crucial energy chokepoints, where an average of about 20 million barrels per day is shipped through. A choke is an area during which, if shut, you end up getting a shock stop of the flow of global trade. Thirty percent of the global oil flows through that.
And part of the reason for that is that the world’s biggest oil producers - some of the biggest oil producers are all sitting around the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
The petrodollar system is a global arrangement where oil-exporting countries price and sell their crude oil in United States dollars. All the Gulf states have to sell their oil in dollars to the States and globally.
The dollars they receive is then invested back into the US economy by these states. This is nothing more than a mafia enterprise!
This system, established in the 1970s, has been a cornerstone of global finance, ensuring a constant worldwide demand for the dollar. The fundamental basis of the US imperial order since the end of the Second World War has been, on the one hand, petroleum and, on the other hand, the US dollar.
The globe’s production and finance worlds are dependent on the petroleum that the US has controlled, and which, until the nationalisation of oil in the 1970s and '80s, basically controlled something like 60% of the world’s oil reserves.
The sale of oil in US dollars, forces South Africa to bear higher fuel and logistics costs when oil prices rise and the rand weakens.
As a heavy importer of dollar-denominated oil, this system drives up local inflation, raises interest rates, and shuts economic growth. Because oil is priced in US dollars, a weakening rand against the dollar makes imports more expensive, directly increasing petrol and diesel prices.
South Africa relies heavily on the petrodollar system, primarily because it is a net importer of petroleum products, which are priced and traded globally in US dollars.
This reliance makes the South African economy vulnerable to the strength of the dollar and fluctuations in oil prices.
High oil prices drive up transportation, logistics, and food costs. In 1970, the exchange rate for the British pound to the South African rand was approximately £1 = R1.71. Hard to believe for those of us born in the 1980s or the GenZ generation.
During that time, the rand was stronger than it is today, often trading at a value even higher than the US Dollar (approximately in 1970). When the Rand was first introduced in 1961 to replace the South African Pound, it was set at a rate of £1 = R2.00.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the rand had gained massive value against the pound, reaching levels around R1.61 in 1968 and roughly R1.71 by 1970. For shocking comparison, as of March 2026, the rate is approximately £1 = R22.65!
The South African rand was stronger than the US dollar from its introduction in 1961 until early 1982. During this period, the rand was often worth over US$1.40. The rand reached its strongest level of approximately USD 1.35 to the rand in 1980. Today we have been reduced to beggary!
So, the fact that Iran is actually looking for alternatives to the dollar in order to challenge the petrodollar regime, one of the fundaments of the US empire, is something we should support to lead to a potentially new world order post this illegal war, where there’s a multipolar financial system, where, for example, the dollar is no longer a single currency that rules the world.
South Africa needs to hit back now! South Africa buys oil and refined petroleum products in US Dollars, even though it pays using the South African Rand. It pays dollars to a country whose currency is not dollars!
The insanity of it all! Because South Africa is a net importer of fuel, this dependence means that when the Rand weakens against the dollar, fuel prices rise, increasing inflation across the economy. South Africa can settle oil and gas imports in non-dollar currencies, specifically Chinese Yuan or directly in local currencies like Nigerian naira.
It is time to end the petro-dollar reliance once and for all. We could start regulating fuel prices and can use the obscure Petroleum Products Act of 1977 to increase control. Nationalisation could be achieved by amending the Mineral & Petroleum Act of 2002, to force state participation in all new exploration and production projects for possible oil.
But South Africa currently imports nearly 80% of its fuel, making complete nationalisation a logistical nightmare. Hence the Iranian erosion of the petro-dollar system is something we need to all support and back. If Iran can challenge the petrodollar system by demanding alternative currencies, specifically, the Chinese yuan, for oil sales, particularly for exports passing through the Strait of Hormuz and shutting down Israeli/American access for good, we may one day see petrol being sold at R 5 a litre.
Yusuf Ismail
Image: Supplied
Yusuf Ismail is a criminal defence lawyer and founder of the South African Debate Initiative
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.