Metro Vancouver gas prices drop 40 cents in past week

Pump prices across Metro Vancouver have seen a dramatic drop as the cost for a litre of regular gas fell almost 40 cents in the past week.

According to GasBuddy, gas prices in the region averaged $1.958 per litre Sunday, a drop of 39.8 cents per litre from the week before.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at the gas price tracker, says the abrupt, yet expected, decline in gas prices happened due to easing refinery issues that have plagued the west coast and prairies. However, the price of diesel is expected to continue to climb.

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“We’ll see a continued drop in gas prices on the west coast, as refinery outages have been addressed. As a result, Vancouver saw prices plunge close to 40c/L in the last week alone,” De Haan said. “The Prairies will also see prices drift lower as BP’s Whiting refinery in the U.S. Midwest is soon to complete maintenance. In addition, oil prices have cooled off slightly after OPEC+’s decision to cut production, and that should slow increases elsewhere. Diesel and heating oil prices are likely to continue to rise as extremely low inventories of middle-of-the-barrel products like these two push prices higher.”

Gas prices Sunday were on average 33.5 cents per litre higher than the same day in 2021, and are about 1.9 cents per litre higher than a month ago, according to GasBuddy.

As for prices across the country, the national average of gas increased by 18.1 cents per litre during the last month and is averaging just over 25 cents per litre more expensive than this time last year.