Gas prices to remain volatile, expert says

Plunging world CALGARY oil prices have delivered a Christmas miracle of lower gasoline prices across most of Canada but a fuel price expert says motorists should fill up ahead of an expected increase this weekend.

Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, says gasoline prices are at near 18-month lows because of global oil prices that have tumbled over the past two months on worries of an economic downturn, a U.S.-China trading tiff and concerns that members of the OPEC oil cartel won’t live up to production cuts.

Average regular gasoline prices on Friday remained about 17 cents lower per litre than a year ago in Alberta and Ontario, 12 cents lower in Manitoba, six cents lower in Quebec, 11 cents lower in Nova Scotia and three cents lower in Newfoundland and Labrador.

McTeague says prices in B.C. are up two to six cents per litre compared with the same time last year but would be lower if not for the effect of interruptions in fuel imports from Washington due to the outage of that state’s Olympic Pipeline in mid-December.

McTeague says “extreme volatility” could continue to wreak havoc on gasoline prices in Canada in the early part of 2019.

“I think what we’re seeing here where oil prices — and pump prices as a corollary — are going up and down five and 10 per cent in a given week, much of this is really a harbinger of what we’re likely to see in 2019,” he said.