Hi,

after 4 years in Jordan I am relocating to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia this summer. I have owned and used a petrol 4 x 4 while in Jordan with good results (Mitsubishi Pajero, the standard 4 x 4 here!).

However I have been advised that I need a diesel in Ethiopia as petrol is difficult to find out of the capital.

For those of you who have travelled in the country (which we fully intend to do!), what are your views? It is a lot cheaper for me to add a long range fuel tank onto my existing car than buy a new one to replace it.

One of the trips I intend to do will be Addis to Khartoum, which although not a huge distance can take up to 5 days to complete, so a good range on a petrol V6 would be required (standard tank is 80 litres and gives no more than 400km), so all comments would be much appreciated.

Also the advisability of Land Rover versus Land Cruiser if I have to go down the new turbo diesel vehicle route!

regards.


Alan L.

Dear Alan,

This is really interesting: We never met even though I lived in Jordan for more than four years and drove a Pajero!

Last autumn I travelled from Jordan through Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia without any problems (unfortunately I did not have the time to go as far as Ethiopia). Only in Egypt did I need an octane booster since in some oasis only 80 octane was available. Most of the time, 90 or even 95 octane was available, though.

I would not worry too much about fuel in Ethiopia: gasoline in Jordan has a far worse quality than is officially pretended: The "95" quality in Jordan has only 88 octane in reality. The fuel in Ethiopia will not be worse. What I heard from colleagues is basically only that fuel is "enriched" with 10 per cent of Ethanol in Ethiopia but even that doesn't do any harm.

This link gives you a first idea about the availability of fuel in Ethiopia:

NOC Station Locator | National Oil Ethiopia

Please keep in mind that this is only one of several companies in the country. The situation is becoming better all the time, especially with the current economic boom in Ethiopia (though this comes - take the land grabbing for instance - at a price).

To cut a long story short: I would always opt for the additional fuel tank or a few jerry cans on the roof rack :-)

Greetings
Achim