GAS BARGAINS
Soaring prices drive pennypinching motorists in search of best buys at the pump. See our guide to Metro Vancouver.
Gas prices soared to record highs in Metro Vancouver Friday, with some pumps topping $ 1.55 a litre.
In Richmond, some pumps were as high as 155.4 cents per litre, while many other pumps in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and the Tri- Cities area topped $ 1.50, according to gasbuddy. com, a gas price- tracking website.
Metro Vancouver residents haven’t seen prices this high since 2008, when pump prices briefly went over $ 1.50 a litre as crude oil prices spiked to more than $ 140 a barrel.
On Friday morning, the average price of a litre of gas at the pump in Vancouver was 149.7 cents — up 15 cents over the same period last year, and more than 27 cents higher than the national average of 127.2 cents.
The previous record average for Vancouver was 148.5 cents recorded on July 1, 2008.
Drivers at the pumps Friday were shocked to see some prices jump more than five cents overnight.
At the Chevron gas station on West Georgia where gas cost 150.3 cents, Ramin Shahidian of North Vancouver said his family members were already talking about cancelling plans for a trip to the Interior. He also said they were going to sell one of their cars to save on gas.
“It’s just getting too expensive,” said Shahidian. “So we have to share and do car- sharing between ourselves and make a better arrangement for our money.”
Vancouver resident Gina Nguyen was caught off guard when she went to fill up her tank Friday morning and saw the price for gas at more than $ 1.50 a litre.
“I was like, whoa,” she said, adding that she will probably start taking Skytrain instead of driving.
But others, like Vancouver resident John Veloso, described the higher gas prices as a fact of life. He said he had no plans to cancel an upcoming fishing trip to Prince Rupert.
“What are you going to do about it? I want to go to the beach, I want to go to Sasquatch Lake. I mean, am I going to stop going there because of this? No.”
Despite a significant drop in the price of crude oil, which
We’re in a trough and I see it staying flat for the rest of the summer. The [ Cherry Point] refinery is the weak link in the chain and that’s caused the supply- demand imbalance.
ROGER MCKNIGHT
PETROLEUM ANALYST
has led to lower gas prices elsewhere in Canada, Metro Vancouver residents are paying exorbitant prices because of supply problems in the western United States, said Roger Mcknight, a senior petroleum analyst at En- Pro International, a company that provides petroleum pricing solutions for industry sectors in Canada.
Crude oil prices have dropped to about $ 91 a barrel from the $ 105 level just a month ago.
However, BP’S Cherry Point refinery in Washington has been shut down since February, and that — coupled with maintenance repairs at the California plant — has driven up wholesale prices in Seattle, which directly impacts Vancouver prices, Mcknight said.
Wholesale prices in Vancouver Friday were 94.5 cents a litre, he said, compared with 82.9 in Prince George. Prices there typically follow what is happening with gas prices in Edmonton and North Dakota.
“That’s a huge difference,” said Mcknight, adding that he didn’t expect prices to stay at Friday’s record highs.
“We’re in a trough and I see it staying flat for the rest of the summer. The [ Cherry Point] refinery is the weak link in the chain and that’s caused the supply- demand imbalance,” he said. “The good news is the refinery is fixed ... but you can’t just flick a switch and turn it back on overnight.”
Jason Toews, co- founder of Gasbuddy.com, also attributed the soaring prices in Metro Vancouver to problems at the Cherry Point refinery. He added that Vancouver’s prices were also related to a spike in U. S. demand as drivers south of the border fuel up for the Memorial Day long weekend.
“Problems with supplies with gasoline haven’t been this low since 1999 on the West Coast,” said Toews. “Because of Memorial Day, demand is going up in the States and so there is less supply for Vancouver.”
Toews anticipated they’ll drop again in two weeks and won’t stay that high all summer.
“Prices will fluctuate but I don’t think you can expect to see cheap gas this summer,” he said.
A carbon tax increase this summer will also add to the price of gas for B. C. drivers.
On July 1, the tax will go up by another 1.1 cents, bringing the total carbon tax on gasoline to 6.67 cents a litre.