Gas prices up in Metro Vancouver, expected to jump further in New Year

Prices for a litre of regular gas have jumped up Monday morning, with one gas analyst group believing prices will continue to rise as we head into the New Year.

The cost of a litre at the pump is hovering around $1.70 for regular in Metro Vancouver, up from just over $1.67 on Christmas Day.

GasBuddy says prices have increased on average 10 cents in the last week in the Lower Mainland, while the national Canada-wide average has only gone up three cents.

“The Canadian national average price of gasoline saw another rise with oil prices rallying back close to $80 per barrel in the last week. Given the extreme cold weather in areas of the U.S. south and how many refineries operate there, we could see some outages which drive prices up slightly,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said.

“While some of the lowest-priced gas stations in Canada will probably be forced to raise prices in the days ahead, we could see some declines still happening in the West Coast. However, if oil continues to march higher as China reopens its economy, we could see further increases in the weeks ahead.”

Abbotsford’s prices are averaging $1.59 per litre of regular gas, Victoria is seeing $1.57 per litre of regular, while the average across the province is seeing $1.60 per litre of regular.

– With files from Sonia Aslam