Your distance from a port makes less difference to the price of gas than shopping around.
South Africans often assume that gas should be far cheaper at the coast than inland because much of the country's liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) arrives through coastal import terminals before being transported hundreds of kilometres to consumers in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Mbombela.
Yet the government's own pricing formula tells a different story.
The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) publishes a maximum retail price for LPG sold to residential customers.
Effective from 3 June 2026, a 9kg cylinder in Zone 1A, which includes Cape Town and Durban, carries a maximum retail price of R365.85. Johannesburg's Zone 9B has a maximum of R378, while Bloemfontein's Zone 8B tops the list at R379.35.
