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