Annual Gasoline Price Post

We pulled in at the local government owned Co-Op station to fill up a friend's gas tank the other day and I got out to take a picture of the price at the pump.


I did a rough calculation - 92 Egyptian pounds to fill the tank. - each of those 100 pound notes in my pocket is worth about $5.  What???  Where are we? Wonderland?

I soon discovered that the high price of gas has driven my friend over the edge and into the Dark Side.  He has downgraded his purchases from 92 octane to 85 - the people's choice - the fuel of the Russian Lada and other low performance vehicles.  But modern cars apparently adapt fine to this mixture.

The price of 92 octane gasoline, equivalent to the regular unleaded stuff we use back home, has almost doubled over the past two years from 1.85 per liter to 3.50 per liter.  This is more than enough motivation to move to the 85 octane at the government stations priced at a more tolerable 2.35

Of course, this price increase is more than offset to an American by the decrease in value of the Egyptian Pound which has slipped precipitously against the dollar since it was allowed to "float" last November.


Here are the prices for 92 octane "Regular Unleaded" over the past few years in both local and U.S. currency.

	EGP	$
Year	per litre	per gallon
2007	1.50	1.04
2011	1.42	0.93
2013	1.85	1.04
2014	1.85	1.01
2016	2.60	1.26
2017	3.50	0.74

Pity the Italians who are paying ten times as much, about $7 per gallon.

By the way, confidence in the Egyptian Pound must be rising.  Bank interest rates have fallen from 20% down to 16% - although I understand you can still get 20% at the post office.  (At the post office?  Yes, everything is different here.)