With 50 US dollars (approximately Ksh5,800), you can buy 1,301 litres of petrol, in Libya. If you were to use the very latest economy vehicle, that amount of fuel would take you more than 24,000 kilometres.
Which means to Cape Town. And back – if you were to use the Trans-Saharan Highway A1, a journey of around 12,000 km.
According to the Global Fuel Index, oil-rich Libya is the country with the world’s second-cheapest fuel. One dollar will get you 26 litres. In Venezula, which has the word’s cheapest fuel, a dollar buys you some 34.4 litres.
The report, developed by Zutobi, an online driver’s education company, uses a best-selling petrol-powered saloon vehicle as the base estimate for fuel consumption of 19 kilometres per litre of petrol, or, 5.26 litres/ 100 kilometres, to provide comparative analysis of how far one could drive, in each country, for 50 USD dollars.
Other major oil-producing countries like Algeria, Angola and Nigeria top the list of African jurisdictions where drivers can travel longer distances, thanks to cheaper fuel.
Drivers in Algeria pay 129.3 litres for 50 dollars, allowing them to drive up to 2,510 kilometres, at the same consumption rate.
At the same cost, drivers in Angola would drive 2,259 kilometres (they’ll get 119 litres of fuel for 50 USD dollars), Nigerian drivers will manage 1,982 kilometres (104 litres) and Egyptian drivers, 1,522 kilometres (80 litres), completing the list of African countries where one can travel 1,000 kilometers and above, on 50 US dollars.
“The average number of miles you could travel for 50 US dollars is 706 miles (1,136 kilometres),” according to report.
Ethiopia (1,271 kilometres), Togo (931 kilometers) Chad (910 kilometres), Sudan (825) and Benin (783 Kilometers) were among those ranked below the average distance but still listed among countries where cars can cover longer distances.
Gabon (778 kilometres), Madagascar (777 kilometres) and Sierra Leone (775 kilometres) also featured in the list.
Angola leads African countries as the country that has recorded the biggest drop in fuel prices over the last five years. In 2017 the cost of a gallon of fuel (3.78 litres) in the West African nation was 4.32 US dollars. That has now fallen to 1.60 US dollars per gallon on average.
“With a 775.81 percent decrease in the cost of petrol, Angola is some way off Syria and Iran, but its petrol prices have dropped considerably more than fourth-placed Russia,” said the report.
The cost of fuel in Russia is pegged at 2.20 US dollars per gallon – equivalent to 1.7 litres per dollar.
Other African countries that have recorded major decreases in cost of fuel over the review period are Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar, the world’s second-largest island country.
Of Africa’s largest economies, South Africa has the most expensive fuel, at around 1.3 litres per dollar. BY DAILY NATION