Strathroy, St. Thomas best cities in Ontario to fill up: gas price analyst

A summer-long gas war in St. Thomas and Strathroy has a gas price analyst calling the two cities the best places in Ontario to fill up.

The average price for a litre of regular gas in London Thursday morning was $1.379 — that’s 33 cents more expensive than this time last year.

In those cities to the south and west of London, the average price was $1.283, nearly 10 cents cheaper than in the city.

That’s why, if you can, you should head to those places to fill up.

But why is gas so cheap outside of the Forest City?

“They’re getting what’s called dealer support,” said McTeague.

“This is a handful of stations that have decided to duke it out, but they’re doing it at the expense of their retail margins,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "This is a handful of stations that have decided to duke it out, but they're doing it at the expense of their retail margins," he said.

“They’re not making a lot of money and it tends to be a handful of players who like to really compete against each other and do this for a period of a couple of months.”

He added in order to sell at such low prices, gas retailers get their suppliers or refiners to cut their margins in order to allow the retailers to cross-subsidize the loss.

While gas is expensive in London, on average it’s cheaper here than in Toronto, Ottawa and Muskoka.

— With files from Devon Peacock