Egypt: Fuel rationing from July
 

Hi all. Be warned people travelling through Egypt from July. The govt announced yesterday that subsidised fuel would be rationed from July. All residents would be issued a ration card and only able to access a limited amount of fuel. 95 is no longer subsidised so that's available (but carried by less and less outlets). How that will affect travelers is unclear - but being Egypt it'll be a drama. This might simply translate to a surcharge (baksheesh), but it might be more complicated than that. Of course being Egypt it might not actually happen for another eleventy years. More info as it becomes clearer. cheers Brett

so far there is petrol every where ,only some time the very low octane (80 ) octane is hard to get ,but 90-92-95 octane is OK and most every where ,the oases road was hard to get 3 months ago on my way to Aswan though
diesel is so hard to get lanes snd lanes of cars ,trucks .:thumbdown::thumbdown:
hope my country will be better soon !!

Hi Omar

we wish you all the best for the future...and many people agree with us :thumbup1:

Thomas & Andrea

miles-to-ride.com

Hey hey people!

Just a heads up, unleaded is fairly easy to get although if you're in a car you can sometimes have to queue for lengthy times. Bikers though - go straight to the front. Be warned, a few times we have had the pumps cut out half way through filling up and then they have tried to charge us double so keep your eyes on the money!!

Diesel though... it's a nightmare. Our friend waited 5 hours for diesel the other day. Very scarce and hours upon hours of waiting. Black market diesel is available if you're fortunate to stumble across those with the connections but it comes at a price and with some scum so have a fuel sock to hand.

Alternatively, take a hand pump and carrier around some truckers and see if they will let you siphon some for some wonga! Another trick some people have been using!

Good luck all those travelling through! Hope you're not caught in the heat and queues!

some patience please....
 

We have no right to expect everything become perfect in a very limited time after a very hard operation..We believe all will be in order very soon and Egyptian friends will overcome all problems they suddenly and unexpectedly met in their country.

I can never forget how local people tried to protect the museums and foreign travellers inside the country during the reformation days.

Personally feel they need some understanding and morale...Happy to say will always stand beside them and our prays always will be with them.


Best wishes

Because that was the exact point of my post as an expecting European ... Not meant in a heads up to travellers who may not be aware of the situation... Noo... Not at all! ;) :p

We just wanted to let over landers know if they're heading in from sudan or nearby and have an empty tank they may have to swap their vehicle for a faluka instead due to the shortage!

Incidentally we found out after bargaining that a land rover discovery will only acquire you half a faluka, however, if you are accompanied by a handsome chap sporting a moustache and with a healthy handshake you can swap him for 100 falukas!

Is there a shortage of diesel at the moment ?

Simple answer is yes!!

Atlas - our friends who have crossed into Egypt have recently confirmed they're struggling with diesel still (hours queueing). Sometimes there's issues with petrol too :)

Hope you don't get stuck!

Clare and Sam :)

I have "Solar" .. if you need. Although I'm not quite on your route ... but your welcome anyway ...
Cheers : beer

Diesel
 

Thanks.Will be going through in August so will follow this thread.

OK - just driven Aswan - Luxor - Western Desert - Cairo - Sharm el Sheikh - Tabat & here is our advice regarding diesel ("Solar").

Arrive with full tanks - it's very hard to get.

Fill up little & often - it's easier to get 30 liters than 130 litres.

In Aswan we found ourselves being ushered to the front of the queue with no fuss being made by the locals at all. So we (reluctantly & warily) went to the front & found ourselves being looked after very well... helped by the fact that we only wanted 20 litres of course. So our tactic there after that became:

- when you see people queuing for fuel you know there is a tanker just in or on it's way... here you will get fuel.
- approach from the other side of the road (not from the back of the queue) & gently go to the pumps, pretending to be clueless & ask "Mumkin Solar?" ("Any diesel?"
- every time (& I mean every time) we were given the thumbs up & were slotted nicely into the queue without any fuss being made by anyone. Again I must emphasise that we never put more than 40 litres in at any time. To do more would be pushing the kindness & generosity of those letting you in front of them.

Most times we were charged the going rate. A couple of times we paid about 120% - 150% of the true cost... for us worth it for getting to the front, especially when it starts at 10p a litre anyway!

Once the 'tip' I offered the pump guys after he filled us up was firmly given straight back to me. None actually demanded or expected one.

Never were we given a hard time, involved in any problems or stupidly overcharged.

I know some may think it's wrong to queue jump - fine, then sit in the queue. But I got the impression that most people had no problems with it & many quoted the importance of tourism to the Egyptian economy as being a justifiable reason. Your choice. If we had at any point felt that it was causing problems we would not have continued.

BTW - the easiest place for fuel was Aswan (on the road to Abu Simbel about 10km south of Aswan), in the Western Destert & Suez. The worst were Cairo & Sinai (esp Sharm el Sheikh which has 100s of tour busses waiting or fuel daily).

Good luck

I was in Egypt on our trans-african trip last summer. We spent about a month in Aswan waiting for the ferry and attempting to get Sudanese visas. Being there for so long we befriended many folks and learned something interesting...

APPARENTLY there is a "law" that allows for tourists to bypass fuel lines. I don't know if it is a local law, national law, or whatever. My thoughts are that Egypt is tourist friendly with cheap visas, VERY lax rules regarding overstaying a visa, cheap and easy extensions, etc. This could be an extention of that.

We were told this by no less than 10 people and several times we would be with Egyptians in one of our cars (we were driving) and would go get fuel ahead of all others. Our friends said nothing and no one complained or batted an eye.

I'd love to know more about others' experiences with this.

Hi, Slightly sidetracked question....(we hope to get boat to Cairo in about 6 weeks - if it starts running again).
What's the fuel situation like re diesel? Has the rationing kicked in / whats cost & availability generally? Any problems as a result of the political situation in Cairo?

Hi Wearthefoxhat,

An indication of the situation could be this recent article of the New York Times of 10 July:

Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/wo...&smid=fb-share

Best
Achim

Thanks Achim, there's usually someone engineering all of these situations behind the scenes (good or bad), but its the guy on the street who suffers for it.
We're watching the situation as closely as possible at the moment and it's clearly difficult for the people there. Our difficulties trying to get into the country are very small compared to what's happening on the streets.
Lets hope things settle and the violence stops soon - maybe Egypt can re-open for business quickly, but it looks unlikely at present.
Regards
Scott

Hi we went through before and after the revolution leaving by the 10th I think. At that point it hadnt changed the situation much, it still took a queue from 1 hr to 3 or more if you didnt want to cut in or pay extra for some black market fuel with no queue. The locals were cutting in as well in places and there were some heated discussions.
Normal price 1.10 Egp
Abu Simbul no queues at all though! The revolution didnt seem to have reached there

Egypt fuel diesel
 

Mail from Bahariya :
Since Morsis removal there is again fuel/diesel at the filling stations in the oasis
and less electricity blackouts!

Trip to Africa
 

Hi Scott,My wife and I are also on the way home to Cape Town.Where are you now ? The last post I can find on your website is Cyprus in May ?

I found fuel at every station. No problems here!

We're still in Cyprus (I'm afraid).
Seems like the ferry from Turkey to Egypt is still cancelled / suspended. We currently expecting to get back to Turkey late August and try and find a container boat / RORO to Sudan if the Egypt ferry doesn't start running.
Have looked into containers from Cyprus / Port Sudan but (since car is approx 2.5m high) latest quote from here is $6,000 (!!).
We may have to risk ferry to Israel - Jordan and then Egypt and just take a chance re Israeli stamps in the Carnet when we get to Sudan.
How did you get on getting in?
Scott

Only go in a couple of weeks. Will let you know.

We are also going through greece to israel on our way to capetown in a month...hope egypt can hold together...


Steven

Wheel Wishers
www.wheelwishers.org

we are looking to enter N Africa at the end of August and are currently getting quotes for a 20ft container from Mersin to Port Sudan. It would be a shame to miss Egypt (but have been there before) but this way we avoid the potential problems of Israeli stamps.

We currently have estimates from a Turkish shipping agent and a Sudanese shipping agent. Some details yet to finalise, but could enquire about a 40ft container if anyone is interested in sharing (or may be able to squeeze a bike into the 20ft container with our car).

Hi,

We would be interested in sharing a container, but I don't think that the time period will be good when we will be in turkey.

But how much are you expecting to pay for the container?

SImon

Hi Simon, I did a scrap of paper calculation that the costs for the 'regular' Iskenderun / Port Said ferry (if it was running!) then down to Khartoum via White Desert in Egypt and Wadi Haifa barge would cost about $4,500 (incl fuel, 'waiting' in hotels, fixers, etc).
As an estimate to also get to Khartoum, container estimates we have had so far include;
1) approx $2,600 from a company in Port Sudan (includes clearing the vehicle at Port Sudan, but I'm not sure yet what costs / proceedure is involved in loading it at Mersin, Turkey.
2) approx $3,500 from a company in Istanbul who will deal with all the loading / lashing etc, but seem to only want to ship to Mombassa. This would mean us back-tracking quite a bit as we're keen to see Sudan and particulary spend time in Northern Ethiopia.
Both costs exclude flights to follow the car and any hotel costs either end. They also assume we can get the roof-tent off and to get into a standard height 20ft container (and that tent will also fit in).
All in all, I think the costs are going to work out much the same. It's going to come down to whats possible / sensible.
One of the other advantages of the shipping however would be that we would avoid having Egypt added to the Carnet. This would save us about £3,000 (although we would get half of that back when returning the Carnet to the RAC).
Still not sure which option we're going to go with yet - am watching how VanGS gets on as he has gone via Israel and it will be interesting to see what happens when he gets to Sudan.
It would be so much easier if the bloody Iskenderun / Port Said ferry was still running.
Regards
Scott

Hoi,

We hebben gezien dat je ons hebt toegevoegd op fb. Bedankt voor je antwoord, wel vrij duur, maar zeker geïnteresseerd om een container te delen, maar hadden liever van Turkije naar Egypte geweest, omdat het ons ook wel een heel interessant land lijkt. Als het echter niet anders kan dan gaan we wel via port Soedan. Zijn ook aan het mailen met unroro, Miss komt daar nog iets uit de bus. Keep us up To date.


Groetjes, Simon en lore

hi warethefoxhat
Could you share with us your contact for Turkey to Mombassa. We are in the similar boat of trying to get to Africa from Turkey. We may want to consider this option, or try out the company UN Ro.Ro.

Thanks

Trust me, you do not want to take the boat to dar es salaam! If you do not bother about all the nice things you will miss on the road, there is still the point of a lot a lot of corruption in the harbour of dar es salaam. I heard now from 3 different people that they shipped a car to dar es salaam and had to pay more then 5000 dollar to get the car from the harbour!!

When will you try to go from Turkey to Egypt? Which period? We will do the same in the beginning of october!

With all the emails I've got / sent, I'm afraid I still haven't got anything finalised yet (still questions to be answered by each shipper). However, all of the guys below have been pretty helpful so far and I'm making progress with each of them:
1- Turkey (believe it's Mersin) to Mombassa: Ships International (a broker) email Ahmed05@shipsintelltd.com Contact is Ahmed. Cost approx €2,500 plus a few extras. Don't know cost of clearing the car in Mombassa yet.
2 - Turkey (or Cyprus) to Port Sudan: These guys are based in Sudan and say they will deal with clearing the car from the port. Don't know yet who they use in Turkey for loading etc. Biggest issue seems to be that Visas can take up to 6 weeks to get and are needed before you fly in (I think its probably best to know you've got them before putting car in the container!). email darkaship@darkasudan.com Contact: Ismail Ahmed. Cost approx €1,900 plus insurance etc.
3 - Turkey to Egypt: This is a RoRo service to Alexandria, organised via a UK company called Autoshippers (a division of 1st Move International). Email graeme@shipit.co.uk Contact: Graeme Webb. Cost approx €850 (plus insurance - which I'm checking as it seems very expensive). Problem with this one is they're currently saying car must travel empty and personal belongings be shipped separately. Can't see that working for us.

SimonLore also mentioned a company called UnRoRo which goes from Turkey to Alexandria, but I don't have contact details to hand and don't know if they will allow personal possessions to be left in the vehicle (or whether it would be safe to do so - I've heard some horror stories).
Mind you, I've heard nothing good at all about Mombassa or Dar.
Since this thread is about Egypt fuel supplies, I'll start a new one called 'Avoiding Egypt going down', (there is currently one called 'Avoiding Egypt going up' otherwise we're possibly messing up anyone looking for info related to the thread title.
Regards
Scott

Please see my post in Avoid Egypt going down.