Metro Vancouver gas prices expected to climb further

The price at the pump around Metro Vancouver rose well past the $2 mark Thursday, and a gas analyst says the increase isn’t over yet.

Some stations around the region have posted a litre of regular for $2.09. That’s a far cry from where prices were sitting just a week ago.

However, the increases expected in the coming months aren’t isolated to the Metro Vancouver region.

“We’re still expecting to see the same — not that magnitude of 10 to 15 cents — but I would expect to see rises coming across Canada, even with the winter fuel coming in. I don’t think the lower prices seen across Canada are going to be as prolonged as everyone would like,” Paul Pasco, principal consultant with Kalibrate, explained.

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He notes it all comes down to supply chain issues, adding west coast markets — including B.C., Washington state, and California — tend to be the hardest hit by fuel prices.

“The dip was pulled down by the overall market sentiment, you know, looming recession. But, unfortunately, the tightness on the supply side never left the market, so the prices did resume their increase. And we’re still seeing tightness on the crude supply market and even now starting to see a creeping tightness in the ethanol supply markets,” he told CityNews.

The increase in prices this week was not unexpected, at least from the analyst’s point of view. Pasco earlier warned that fuel would likely start to cost you more in the coming weeks, despite some slight easing.

However, he understands why some people may have been taken aback when they went to fill up Thursday.

“I think what people have to remember, when you look at the markets, it’s, the U.S., we look at their strategic petroleum reserves are at the lowest mark since October 1984. There is a real supply-side tightness that isn’t going anywhere and being at the farthest point on the supply side from that hub, the west coast market will get hit the hardest,” Pasco said.

Metro Vancouver drivers pay some of the highest fuel taxes across the country.

-With files from Sonia Aslam