Petrol quality, Sudan&S.Egypt:

[Endurorally]

Can anyone comment on the quality of petrol in Southern Egypt, and Sudan - will be coming up from Ethiopia in February in a one-litre Panda (see www.africarecordrun.com), and any info on the petrol quality - this small engine doesnt like going below 90 octane - and the conditiions of the roads would be good to hear.
Philip Young

[*Touring Ted*]

Hi.

My information is from 2010/2011.

The quality of fuel in Sudan is pretty low. You can get 90 in Khartoum but it's lower than that outside of the capital. Look at getting some octane booster.

I'm not sure what it is, but as far as I know, nobody seems to break down due to the low octane.

I'm 'guessing' that it's in the mid 80's. Even without booster, my DRZ ran fine on it and that likes minimum 85.

Egypt is fine... You'll have no problems there. It's VERY cheap too

If you're running okay in Ethiopia, I doubt you'll have problems in Sudan.


The roads in Sudan are now VERY good. All new Chinese built highways. Lots of wild camping available on the side of the road too. I would carry spare fuel and LOT's of water in Sudan. The stations can run dry and that was before the separation.

Roads in Egypt are also very good and fuel stations everywhere.... You'll have no problems. Until you can to deal with their beaurocracy. Good luck !!

[Endurorally]

Thanks for that, Touring Ted. The problem is that the little Panda is turbocharged, and the 875cc engine, rather more peppy than it sounds, relies on the turbo for its performance, it increases the compression ratio when on boost. Not ideal for Africa but then the whole thing is risky.
Octane booster: it seems to boost a octane-ratio by four, or five, at the very most, and we would need a trailer to carry it. (we have avoided a roof rack and going ultra-light). I ran through Sudan in January 2011, as a recce for last January's London to Cape Town rally (which went via Sudan crossing the Red Sea out of Jeddah), but on the recce we were in a trusty diesel Freelander, coming out of Egypt on the old ferry down Lake Nasser to Wadi Halfa. Yes, the road quality was a big surprise from there.
We are making a push to try to come up the Western side of the Nile - a new road - any info on this would be good to see.

We are two wheel drive, running six-ply Firestone 165-80-14 van tyres. In the interest of saving the car as much as possible we are going to have to be ultra careful with any rough stuff - thats if we survive the horrors of the Marsabit track in Northern Kenya, which is truly aweful.

[achim-in-jordan]

Hi Philip,

There have been numerous threads and updates on the HUBB on this in recent months. Please scroll through the different posts in the Sahara forum.

Here is a summary of the main points as of October / November 2012:

Sudan:

There is only one quality for fuel in Sudan, and from Wadi Halfa via Khartoum to Port Sudan nobody has ever been able to identify the octane quality for me. I never needed an octane booster though which I would have needed had the quality been less than 90 octane.

There are plenty of gas stations and I have never experienced any dry ones.

I would agree that if you don't encounter problems in Ethiopia, you won't in Sudan either.

In Ethiopia, they mix a 10 per cent part of Ethanol into the fuel!

Roads are good to very good in Sudan, especially in the North. On the Western side of the Nile, the new tarmac road leads up as far as 160 km North of Dongola. The Delgo ferry would then be the last option to cross over to the Eastern side from where the tarmac runs all the way to Wadi Halfa.

Egypt:

I would definitely - and unfortunately - not agree with Touring Ted with regard to fuel stations in Egypt! While roads are good, fuel stations are everywhere in the Nile valley, but only sparse in the Western desert (which means some 400 km between stations as they are only in the oases).

In addition, given the fuel crisis in the country, you might have difficulties finding fuel. Sometimes, only 80 octane is available. Most of the time I have found 90 or even 92 (in Cairo also 95), but had to wait for some hours at times. In Bahariya, friends had to organize fuel from as far away as Fayoum!

At other times, it was easier the better - and more expensive! - the fuel quality was, since most Egyptians can't afford the better qualities.

The octane booster you can buy locally usually adds 5 octane to the quality (for instance Liqui Molly). The little bottles don't consume any space. During my whole trip I only needed three of the ten bottles I had bought for the few instances when I had to fill up with 80 octane. The worst situation was in Farafra where all four stations I found had no 90 octance. This also meant that I had to drive for almost 800 kilometers between Bahariya and Dakhla (including the detour into the White Desert).

Greetings
Achim