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Pain at the pumps hits Vancouver drivers as price of gas soars over $1.54

Prices expected to stay above $1.50 for the week
gas prices
Gas prices in Vancouver soared above $1.54 a litre Monday and are expected to stay above $1.50 for the week. Photo Dan Toulgoet

It isn’t quite record breaking but the price of gas in Vancouver passed the $1.50 mark again Monday, hitting 154.9 cents a litre.

Analyst Dan McTeague, with GasBuddy.com, said the all-time record gas price for Metro Vancouver is 155.7 cents a litre, set on June 22, 2014. That record is expected to fall later this year — McTeague is predicting prices could hit $1.60 per litre this summer.

“I have a hint that we will see days in 2018 this summer, sometime between the beginning of May and the end of September, where we could hit $1.60 a litre,” he said in a previous interview.

The most recent spike in the price of gas was sparked by a three-cent increase in the wholesale price of fuel after the temporary shutdown of a U.S. pipeline, coupled with the continued shut down of the Parkland refinery in Burnaby, which has been shut down for spring maintenance since early February.

McTeague said the shutdown of the Olympic pipeline is expected to last four or five days. He said the price could go down by a penny mid-week but will likely stay above $1.50 for the rest of the week.

Gas prices are typically lowest in January, February and the beginning of March because demand is lower and winter blend gas is cheaper. By law, refineries and gas stations must sell summer blend gas, which costs about four cents a litre more, starting by April 15.

If it seems like Vancouver’s gas prices are on the high end of the spectrum, they are.

“We’re number one by a long shot,” McTeague told the Courier earlier this month. “No one’s even close.”

The region not only has the highest gas prices in the country, but all of North America.

“I would actually argue in all of the Western Hemisphere with the exception of some island in the Caribbean,” he said.

@JessicaEKerr

jkerr@vancourier.com