Every litre that reaches a forecourt carries a stack of costs accumulated from the loading port to the pump. The landed cost is the all-in cost of getting product to your depot, before your margin; the pump price is what you add on top to make the cargo worth running. Build the stack wrong — understate duty, forget a levy — and a cargo that looked profitable on a spreadsheet loses money in the tank.
Start with FOB
FOB (free on board) is the price of the product itself at the loading port, before transport. It tracks the international product market and the supplier’s premium, and it is usually the single largest line in the stack. Quote and contract it per litre in US dollars so it lines up cleanly with everything that follows.
Add the cost of getting it here
- Freight and shipping: ocean freight to the discharge port (typically Beira or Durban for Zimbabwe-bound cargo), then inland haulage to your depot.
- Duty: import duty levied on the product as it enters the country — a percentage or per-litre charge that must be modelled cargo-by-cargo.
- ZERA and statutory levies: the regulated levies and margins that apply to fuel in Zimbabwe, collected on each litre.
- Handling, storage and losses: depot throughput fees, financing cost over the cargo cycle, and an allowance for evaporation and handling losses.
Then add your margin
Landed cost plus your distributor or retail margin gives the pump price. The margin has to cover your operating costs, the cost of financing the cargo while it clears, and a return — which is why the tenor of any trade-finance facility (and the interest on it) feeds directly back into the price you need at the pump. A thin margin on a slow-moving cargo can be eaten entirely by financing cost.
The landed-cost calculator on petrol.co.zw builds this stack interactively — enter FOB, freight, duty, levies and margin and it returns the pump price per litre. Save an estimate to your portal to keep a record per cargo. Figures are illustrative and not a live price feed.
Why it belongs in your contracts
The landed-cost build-up is not just an internal exercise — it is the basis on which you should price a distributor agreement and size a finance application. When you appoint a distributor, the pricing clause should make clear what is included in the depot price and what (duties, ZERA levies, taxes) sits on top. When you apply for finance, the facility amount and tenor should be derived from the same build-up, so the expected sale proceeds visibly cover repayment.