Fuel on the road NDB - NKT
 

Hello Everyone,

What's the latest on petrol availability on the road from Nouadibou to Nouakchott.
My bike (elefant) holds 22ltr which is good for 360km minimum. I want to do Dhakla - NKT in one day and don't want to go into NDB. I know I can top up about 80km north of the border.
Yes I am on a limited schedule (time and money)

cheers

AndyP

We did NDB to Atar but this info may be useful. Fuel in Western Sahara is subsidised by Moroc gov trying to get people to move there. Best you fill up on that side as Mauritania is double the cost. They sell a range of cheap containers at the last station (about 80km from border) which you can toss when done. Mail me if you want GPS co_ords.

Cheers.

Don’t plan on being able to get any petrol on the new NDB-NKT road. I used it this winter, both going south and coming back north again. There are no fuel stations. In a couple of places in the first 100km at the northern end there are single battered old fuel pumps at the side of the road, but if they worked at all these will probably be diesel only.

Going south I bought 8 litres off a guy in a tent next to a police road block about 80kms north of NKT. It was expensive and I’m sure I got short measured judging by how quickly the fuel warning light came on again.

Coming back north none of the fuel stations between Nouadhibou and Dahkla had petrol. They’d all been dry for 3 days. I think this was unusual though.

I only found one station in NKT that had petrol, and they don’t reset the pumps to zero so you pay for the previous guys fuel too!

Be careful if you are heading west out of NKT to Kiffa and Ayoun, there were big fuel shortages there. It sounded if that happens there regularly.

hi CrustyDemon, could you send me gps co_ords please = sq5rk@o2.pl
going there at the beginning of May on bike. Thanks - Romek

if you do dahla nouakchott in 1 day, take bidons with you, there are no petrolstations on the road.
best is to stop in nouadibhou, from there on it's 485 km to nouakchott centre.
ps; dahla nouakchott in one day is a long trip, good luck ;)

Fuel on the road NDB - NKT
 

Hi All,

In answer to my own question. There are 2 fuel stations between NDB and NKT. only assume that diesel is available.

If you want petrol it cost's about 20% up on pump prices and you will find it. it will probably be poured from a sand encrusted jerry can, it's at this point that you remember you never did put an in line fuel filter on your bike.

I filled up 400km away from NKT at the boutique by the Gendame checkpoint. Got all the way into NKT on that one tank. 22ltr.

Nouadibou to Nouakchott.
 

Unless you can do 450+ Km on one tank you had better carry extra fuel since there may not be any available on this stretch. In mid May -06 we were lucky enough to find one place that had gasoline in plastic containers and gasoil (diesel) in an old pump.

I am not sure if everybody knows this , probbably yes , .. but in any case.. here I go ..

Petrol in Africa is often NOT sold in petrol stations.. but in yellow plastic containers.

I mean , most if not all petrol stations sells only Diesel (and Gasoil 470 ) , and they are stop selling petrol at -all .

Petrol is being phased out as a fuel , and is only used by mopeds and motorbikes. These low-cuantity sales are not worth anymore to big petrol stations, and Its left best to general shops.

Therefore.......

PETROL IS NOT SOLD IN PETROL STATIONS. ITS ONLY SOLD WHEREVER YOU FIND YELLOW BIDONS -plastic jerrycanes- (20 litres , I think) USSUALLY IN GENERAL SHOPS (these ones with the cocacola logo on it ) . This last trip (1 week ago) I found at least 20 or 30 places in the road from Nouadibou to Nouarcthot where I could have bought petrol.

If you can find a shop selling ciggies , or a shop selling water in a village , odds are that the very same shop sells petrol aswell. (they power up the fridge by petrol generators)

Question: Is it an easy way to check if the fuel has been already mixed up with 2% oil (for 2 stroke engines ) ?
Answer: No . Unfortunately there's not an easy way/. and in some areas in which the price of (cheap) motor oil is cheaper than petrol (as is in Europe nowdays ) , you can find your fuel horribly mixed with lots of oil . Fortunately this can not cause any damage other than spoiling the sparkplugs every 400 kms . -and this is a very worst case scenario- .

Cheers
Javier

Hi Javier,

I'm quite new here so I cannot email you directly. I would like to contact you because i'm really interested in talking to the only spanish guy i've met so far who knows that much about Africa. I'm planning a Madrid-Cape Town trip for october 2006 and I would like to learn from your experience!! Send me an email if you feel like it, I believe you can do it as a veteran user.

Hope to see you soon,

Un saludo,

leo

HI !!!

I am not sure if this's ok with the forum rules.. but we got a forum quite similar to this one in Spanish language at www.ViajesyAventuras.com where you can find all the Africa/overlanding information in Spanish , including several people which has done a Madrid/Barcelona/Sevilla -> Capetown trip recently .I am the administrator ( username :JCarrion ) and you and any Spanish speaking traveller are most welcome.

Un saludo / Greetings

Javier.

hi javier,

you wrote:

>Petrol is being phased out as a fuel , and is only used by mopeds and motorbikes. These low-cuantity sales are not worth anymore to big petrol stations, and Its left best to general shops.<

that´s definitly not true. only leaded petrol is phased out.

cu,
todo

????????????????

I disagree... well , first , we are talking about west Africa , arnt we ? . Unleaded is virtually unknown in West Africa (other than maybe Dakar ).

You can only get Leaded petrol in some petrol stations , and another added problem is that the fuel nozzle(???) (I dont know the name in English , sorry ) is actually smaller in Unleaded (this is to avoid in Europe putting leaded in an unleaded-only car by mistake) so Its a real pain to fill up unleaded cars in west AFrica

-let alone the fact that the catalityc converters is gone forever with just 1 tank full of non-unleaded petrol

But What I meant , is that more and more , people are stopping using petrol cars. Most towns , specially smaller towns virtually all cars are Diesel , so fuel Stations stop selling petrol at -all. It deppends on the country , but for example , from Nouatchott to Rosso , there are 4 petrol station , none of those sells petrol (unleaded ,leaded , regular , you name it ) any more.

Petrol is now sold in smaller quantities in general shops , in yellow plastic drums of around 25 litres.

The same in Mali .. Other than in big cities , odds are that you can not find petrol other than by the drum. , same in Casamance (Ziguinchor->Kolda) has 3 petrol station ,none of those sold petrol any more ,...

and the list goes on .. and on ..

Only country which apparently sticks to seelling petrol in any petrol Station is Niger.

Have a nice day
JAvier

hi javier,

>Unleaded is virtually unknown in West Africa<

at these links you can see that leaded petrol is phased out in many african countries :
http://www.unep.org/pcfv/Documents/M...sSSA-Jun06.pdf
http://www.unep.org/PCFV/documents/MatrixAfricaLead.pdf

The Gambia in the process of switching to unleaded fuel :
http://www.observer.gm/enews/index.p...3879&Itemid=65

>-let alone the fact that the catalityc converters is gone forever with just 1 tank full of non-unleaded petrol-<

that´s the reason why most people take out the catalityc converter before they drive to africa...

i fully agree with you about the difficulties to get petrol
( leaded or unleaded) at stations sometimes, but imho
this happens because there is often a shortage of foreign
currency to import the stuff.
so more and more you will see the odd yellow bidons,
but mostly filled with smuggled petrol.

greetz,
todo