Sudan's fuel prices leave workers struggling: days lost in queues, half of wages spent on travel

Sudan's severe fuel shortages and sharply rising prices have pushed ordinary working people into a deep cost-of-living crisis. From the Red Sea city of Port Sudan to the outskirts of the capital, transport workers, cleaners and small traders all describe the same daily struggle: finding fuel and paying for travel.

Azhari Mohamed, 60, drives his minibus and eight passengers seven times a day from the Shagar neighbourhood of Port Sudan to the city centre and back. Despite working from 6am to 9pm, he says fuel shortages have made it difficult to earn a living.

His minibus uses three gallons (about 11 litres) of petrol a day, costing about 105,000 Sudanese pounds — about $11.30 at the parallel-market exchange rate. With fuel increasingly hard to obtain, he now spends two days on the road and a third day queueing for fuel.

He can spend more than five hours waiting in line to fill his tank, and often the petrol runs out before his turn comes. When that happens, he joins the back of the queue at another station and starts waiting again.

Prices have risen sharply too. A gallon of petrol now costs 40,000 Sudanese pounds (about $4.30) in Gezira State, south of Khartoum, while in Port Sudan it costs 35,000 pounds (about $3.80).

Azhari says they can no longer work because of the shortages, and that fares no longer cover the cost of running the vehicle and household expenses. The long hours spent queueing are hours he could spend earning, so he works extra hours at night to make up for the time lost during the day.

After subtracting operating costs, Azhari is left with just 50,000 Sudanese pounds (about $5.40) a day — barely enough for his family, including his wife and a daughter at university who needs support for tuition and daily expenses. His plea is simple: if fuel were available, they could work and this obstacle would disappear.

Because of the crisis, Sudan's Transport Chambers Union, which regulates public and private transport, this month raised intercity bus fares by 40 percent and minibus fares by 30 percent. But higher fares have also increased the pressure on passengers.

Aziza Ibrahim, from the Umm al-Qura neighbourhood of Port Sudan, works as a cleaner to support her four children. Simply getting to work has become a huge financial burden, and she has cut back her working days to three a week to reduce transport costs.

Before the war, a journey from her home to the main transport station in the city centre cost 700 Sudanese pounds (about $0.08) per passenger. Fares have since risen to 2,500 pounds (about $0.27) on some routes and 2,000 pounds (about $0.22) on others. Aziza says she needs 11,000 pounds (about $1.18) a day for the round trip between home and work.

Transport costs now consume nearly half of Aziza's monthly salary of 400,000 pounds (about $43), while costly treatment for her diabetes is another burden. Sometimes she has to borrow money just to get to work, repaying it at the start of the month when she is paid — a salary that is barely enough for her family's needs.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, the war has pushed average incomes in Sudan back to levels last seen in the 1990s. That is partly due to the civil war's impact on the oil sector. Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on April 15, 2023.

Last year, the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum estimated war-related losses at $20 billion. The World Bank has reported that attacks on the Balila oil field disrupted supplies to the Khartoum refinery, which previously met about 60 percent of the country's demand for petrol and liquefied petroleum gas.

War damage has sharply decreased oil production, leaving Sudan reliant on imports amid a global fuel crisis that has pushed up prices. Economic analyst Sidi Ohaj says government requirements for petroleum importers have also contributed to the shortages: importers must deposit 200kg of gold in the Central Bank and own fuel storage facilities, and some who could not meet those requirements were forced out of the market, reducing supply.

Sidi says the government urgently needs to ease import procedures to increase domestic supplies, as shortages are affecting the wider economy. But with the war between the United States and Iran continuing to disrupt global energy markets, there is little hope of quick improvement, and drone attacks threatening infrastructure across Sudan remain one of the main challenges facing the oil sector.

Ahmed al-Haj, a trader in Omdurman market who packages and sells skincare products such as petroleum jelly, says high energy prices are costing almost every area of his business. The raw materials he sells are imported, and higher diesel and petrol prices have increased the cost of transporting a tonne of goods by 30 to 50 percent — an increase that is then reflected in product prices.

When electricity cuts force him to use a fuel-powered generator, the extra fuel costs add to his daily bills. Deliveries within Omdurman that previously cost 5,000 Sudanese pounds (about $0.70) now cost between 10,000 and 12,000 pounds ($1.07 to $1.29). Reaching customers in other states has become impossible due to high transport costs, and transport workers have reduced their trips, leaving goods piling up at traders' premises.

Altogether, Sudan's fuel crisis is no longer just a story of queues at petrol stations — it is a deep cost-of-living crisis reaching daily incomes, travel, food prices and family budgets, and how soon it ends depends largely on the course of the war.