I heard someone asking if we're also going to get free fuel in these parts. The short answer is 'Highly Unlikely'. Let me explain why to the best of my limited knowledge.

A thread

Major oil companies buy their stocks on a contract basis i.e. you agree with the extracting company that at a futuristic date, you'll take delivery of a certain amount of barrels of oil. Over the past decades, fuel demand has been rising so naturally, orders were

being made for large quantities of oil. Now suddenly, everything has ground to a halt but the delivery contracts still hold, and yet the fuel companies still have excess fuels in stock. So in order to not renege on the contract, they are now paying other entities

to get the fuel on their behalf. Great news for fuel consumers right? Yeah, maybe. But now lets consider Zim for example. ABC ltd on the Mexican Gulf pays off Naidoo to get a thousand barrels off their hands and Naidoo wants to sell the fuel to XYZ in Harare

As much as the fuel came at zero cost to Naidoo, he is still going to pay freight charges all the way to Beira so already he is going to charge a price, albeit a lower one than the usual. XYZ then gets the fuel from Beira (at a cost) and hauls it to the border

where he has to pay for handling etc. Now this is where we get kicked in the nuts. Unlike most imports, whose duty is charged against the value of imports, fuel duty is charged per unit using a fixed tax figure. So whatevt low price you got the fuel for, at the

border, ZIMRA will demand a fixed duty fee per litre. XYZ then sells to local oil companies, who in turn distribute to retail dealers, with margins being added at each point. So at the end, P Myte will drive to a service station and still pay through the nose, for 'free fuel'

because the cost advantage has been nullified by ZIMRA and whatever was left has been absorbed along the chain. If fuel prices are to be reduced, it will be by a low margin, not reflective at all of the actual drop at the global oil market