London gas prices set to rise by at least six cents/litre overnight

Drivers in need of a gas tank top-up may want to hit the pumps by midnight tonight.

That’s when the cost of a litre of regular gasoline is expected to jump by an average of at least six cents/litre in London and across most of the province, according to gas analyst Dan McTeague of the website GasBuddy.com.

“What we’re seeing here is the reflection of the shift over, the change over, from winter gas into summer gasoline,” McTeague said. “In Canada, you’re required to have a different blend of gas so that it becomes less volatile as temperatures rise.”

“Tonight, you can expect an across-the-board increase of at least six cents/litre,” McTeague said, adding that some may see higher jumps due to something he calls the “gas bar shenanigans of London,” where retailers shed their retail margins by as much as 10 cents/litre.

The average cost of a litre of regular unleaded gasoline in London on Tuesday was around 111 cents/litre, according to GasBuddy. By Wednesday morning, some stations could be selling for as much as 121.9, McTeague said.

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He adds the price jump will result in summer 2017 being the most expensive since 2014. That June, the average cost of regular gas in London hit a peak of around 140 cents/litre.

“As prices of gasoline have been going up with U.S. demand, refineries have been really preparing themselves with longer maintenance periods,” McTeague said. “These things are starting to accumulate.”

Other factors contributing to the cost increase, he says, include Ontario’s new cap-and-trade program and a weak Canadian dollar.

“It doesn’t help that the provincial government has added its environmental tax on top of the other taxes which it and the federal government takes, so when prices start to go up and go back to where they were in 2014/2015, it shows how expensive it has become to buy gasoline.”

Higher pump prices are expected to stick around until mid-September, when retailers switch back to winter-blend gas which is less expensive to make, McTeague said.

— With files from Matthew Trevithick and Natalie Lovie