Without the subsidy: what Gabonese households would pay

Gabon sells its fuel below cost. Super is 595 FCFA a litre and diesel 575, unchanged since January 2024; without the subsidy the same products then cost 1,125 and 1,080. The compensation cost 126 billion FCFA in 2024, 1% of GDP, and 30 billion a month in September 2026. On 8 October 2026 the Council of Ministers asked for it to be reduced, “or even removed in time”. We simulate three scenarios, S1 (diesel +25%), S2 (+37%, the 2024 off-network price) and S3 (+88%, full cost), and follow them down to what a household pays: the taxi fare, the bus ticket, the gas bottle, the sack of rice delivered to its province. From there we compute the effect on budgets by consumption decile (EGEP 2017), for five household types and by province, and compare it with what an equal transfer financed by the saving would give back.

Household budgets lose 1.6 to 4% of consumption in S3, indirect effects included. The better-off lose more, in proportion as in francs. In S1 the loss is 0.4 to 0.8%.

With an equal transfer, the poorer half gains and the richest 30% lose. In S3 the first decile gains 9.5% of its consumption and the last loses 3%.

The taxi is the item that tips the urban middle class. Fares move in steps of 50 or 100 F, so an 18 F fuel surcharge per seat becomes 50 F. An intermediate Libreville household that commutes by taxi loses 3,600 FCFA a month from S1, even with the transfer.

Food delivered by road barely moves. At most 340 FCFA more on a 22.68 kg sack of rice in the interior in S3, and almost nothing in Libreville. Distance weighs on the intercity bus ticket instead: +3,600 FCFA for Libreville–Tchibanga in S3.

The transfer does not exist yet. Social safety nets are 0.03% of GDP, and 5.8% of their benefits reach the poorest quintile. Without a transfer the reform costs every decile; with one that does not reach the interior, it costs the rural households it was meant to spare.

Keywordsfuel subsidy · household budget · incidence · urban transport · cash transfers · Gabon

The price of a journey. The fuel consumed per seat is multiplied by the rise per litre, then rounded up to the fare’s step, as operators do. For intercity coaches the distance is the fastest route on the OpenStreetMap network of September 2026, at 0.012 L of diesel per passenger-km and 35% more on unpaved roads; this puts fuel at 23 to 37% of today’s CNT fares, which is plausible.

The price of a delivered good. The surcharge is the diesel burnt per tonne between the port (Owendo or Port-Gentil) and each inhabited cell, by road alone or with the Transgabonais railway, at 0.040 L per tonne-km (range 0.025 to 0.060). The graph and the population come from GIA: 4,548 inhabited cells, 2026 census.

The budget by decile. The rises are applied to published budget shares (fuel, gas, transport, electricity, food) by consumption decile; only the direct effects vary by decile, because budget structures by decile are not published. Every current price carries its source (official tariff, price list, survey or press); where a price was not found, the paper says so and gives only the surcharge.

Read withOrders of magnitude, not forecasts. The habits of the five household types and the fuel consumption per seat are declared assumptions; budget structures by decile are not published; behaviour does not change in the simulation; the transfer is a calculation, not an existing measure.

1. Fuel subsidy: what has to be decided, and what each choice changes ↗ (7 pages, French, 12 October 2026)
   Decision note. Keep the prices or remove the subsidy, and what to do with the saving: the cost to the State in 2027 and 2028 and the consequences for households and for health, whether oil falls, holds or soars.
2. Without the subsidy, 2026–2028: what the oil price will change for the State and for households ↗ (31 pages, French, 13 October 2026)
   Monte-Carlo forecast: 20,000 trajectories of Brent and the euro-dollar, pump parity, the cost of the subsidy and the household budget, for three policies.
3. From the Brent price to the household budget: technical note ↗ (26 pages, English, 12 October 2026)
   Concepts, equations and models of the Monte-Carlo chain, in English. Every number is written by a script from the simulation outputs.
4. Subvention aux carburants en Monte-Carlo : note technique ↗ (28 pages, French, 12 October 2026)
   The same technical note in French.
5. Where do the CNT lines run? Estimating the unpublished routes of Libreville's bus network on the road graph ↗ (13 pages, French, 13 October 2026)
   The eight urban lines of the national transport company, whose routes are not published, estimated on GIA's road graph and population; used to cost keeping the bus fares.

In the status-quo policy, the forecast puts the subsidy at 203 billion FCFA in 2027 and 173 in 2028 (medians; 298 and 310 if oil soars), against 126 billion in 2024. Indexing the pump price to parity brings the State’s cost to almost nothing and moves the oil risk to households; with the equal transfer, the five poorest deciles gain in almost every trajectory. The oil price changes the size of the choice, not its nature.

1. World Bank. Gabon Economic Update, April 2023, figures 25 to 29 (fuel consumption by decile, budget shares, price effects of subsidy removal).
2. World Bank. Gabon Public Finance Review, September 2026, pp. 110–112 (cost of the subsidy in 2024, social safety nets, single social registry).
3. World Bank. Poverty and Inequality Platform, Gabon 2017 (EGEP II): consumption by decile.
4. INStat / DGS. EGEP II 2017, Profil de pauvreté, tables 2, 3 and 31 to 33; World Bank, Gabon Poverty Assessment, 2020.
5. INStat Gabon. Note on the harmonised consumer price index, October 2024 (weights, base 2018).
6. Enquête démographique et de santé du Gabon 2019–2021, cooking-fuel indicators (DHS Program API, survey GA2019DHS).
7. CNPPP circular of 29 December 2023 (pump prices and butane price from 1 January 2024), reported by Ecomatin.
8. Direct Infos Gabon, 15 July 2026 (CNT intercity fares); Gabon Media Time, 7 October 2026 (taxi and taxi-bus fares during the fuel shortage); Mairie de Ntoum, fare notice applicable from 9 June 2026.
9. Gabonreview, 8 October 2026: Council of Ministers, fuel subsidy at 30 billion FCFA a month.
10. Hodologic Research. Les axes de passage du réseau routier gabonais, working paper, October 2026 (road graph used for the freight and intercity distances).