Analyst says service stations capitalizing on Harvey disaster

The pump price for a litre of gasoline in Montreal jumped for the second time in three days Thursday night — reaching $1.35 for a litre of regular.

On Monday, the average posted price in Montreal was $1.16 for a litre of regular, a price that jumped to $1.27 a day later.

The online gas price monitoring site essencemontreal.com is showing the $1.35 price in several Montreal neighbourhoods, including Ahuntsic, Villeray, St-Henri, St-Léonard and downtown. Montreal suburban gas stations continue to post a price of $1.16. And the price difference is even more pronounced off Montreal Island, particularly on the South Shore, the Laurentians, the Gatineau area and eastern Quebec. In most cases, prices in these regions are less than $1.05. However gas prices in Quebec City stood around $1.24 a litre.

Dan McTeague, an analyst with the GasBuddy website, said a price hike was expected because the flooding caused by hurricane Harvey in Texas had forced many refineries in the area to suspend their operations. McTeague suspects service stations such as those in Montreal will use the wholesale price increase as a pretext to increase their profit margins.

On Friday morning, GasBuddy posted prices of $1.10 a litre in Ottawa, less than $1.08 a litre in Toronto and less than 97 cents a litre in Calgary. Canadian gasoline prices vary substantially by region and city, with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and most of the Atlantic Provinces below the national average. But most Canadian markets have seen gasoline prices rise several cents per litre over the past week, which has seen refinery and pipeline shutdowns in the U.S. Gulf Coast region due to stormrelated flooding.

At least two major pipelines — one that ships gasoline across the southern United States to New York, and another that flows north to Chicago — have been slowed or stopped since hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf region.