Metro Vancouver gas prices top $2/L to start week

As was to be expected, gas prices in Metro Vancouver rose once again to start the week, topping $2 for a litre of regular Monday morning.

Some stations were posting $2.06 at the pump around the region, marking about a seven cent increase over the past week.

According to GasBuddy.com, the average retail price of gasoline in the Vancouver area was up 6.6 cents a litre in the past week, with the average sitting around $1.99 Sunday. Nationally, the average was around $1.65.

“Gas prices suddenly soared over the last week due to heat-related refinery outages that impacted some of the largest refineries in the country, at a time when summer gasoline demand peaks and as gasoline inventories slid to their lowest July level since 2015,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

“In addition, oil prices surged to their highest level in months, rising to over $80 per barrel due to U.S. [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] releases coming to an end and concerns over cuts in supply from Saudi Arabia and Russia, the second and third largest oil producers in the world. Motorists have seen average gasoline and diesel prices rise at the fastest pace in over a year, but the rise seen in the last week should now start slowing.”

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CityNews senior business editor Mike Eppel says international factors could be at play for a little longer.

“Crude futures [Monday] morning were trading north of $81 a barrel on the U.S. benchmark, up 15 per cent for July, as OPEC cut production by a million barrels per day and says it’s going to extend that well into September,” he explained.

De Haan, meanwhile, says there may be more upward pressure on prices for the closing month of the summer, especially with hurricane season around the north Atlantic potentially creating more challenges.

“Now, we’re getting into the peak of hurricane season and with ocean temperatures that are very high, we risk further disruption of some of those large refineries,” he previously told CityNews.

“Any new issues could easily push the national average to the highest level of the year. Drivers may want to brace for potentially higher prices yet,” De Haan added in his latest forecast.

Gas price differences by station

While prices have moved into the territory of $2 per litre of regular gas in Metro Vancouver, they’re still a far cry from the record highs the region saw last year.

Drivers may also find varying prices across the Lower Mainland, and that’s mostly due to volatility, De Haan says.

“On Monday, the wholesale price of gasoline jumped by over 5 cents a litre, so the gas bars and stations that are filling up with that more expensive gasoline are likely to start raising their prices quicker than others might do. Not only that, then you have the cost of doing business in some areas may be higher or lower,” he explained. “Directly in Vancouver, the price of doing business is much higher, so they may be more apt to pass along the increases quicker.”

He says stations in more rural areas may have gas they bought earlier, meaning they have a lower replacement cost than stations in places like Vancouver.

Then there’s the TransLink tax to help fund transit initiatives and local infrastructure around Metro Vancouver, along with other taxes.