With summer in full swing, families have been hitting Saskatchewan roads and finally, there has been little bit of relief on at the pumps.
Regina fuel prices have been on the decline over the last month, with most stations having an average of below $1.799 per litre at of Wednesday.
It comes at the right time for many drivers, after fuel costs surged to historic highs since the beginning of the year.
Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy and the man that runs Gas Wizard, a site that predicts fuel costs for all of Canada, says this is the first step in prices lowering.
“It cost most gas stations today about a $1.50 per litre to replace the fuel they’re buying,” he said. Normally, they charge on top of that anywhere from an eight to 12 cent retail margin.
“In other words, gas prices could drop easily $0.12 to $0.15 a liter to bring them back to where they normally are.”
And the decline is already noticeable.
Wednesday, the lowest gas price in Saskatchewan was in Saskatoon, where a station reached $1.559 per litre. Regina’s lowest price of the day was $1.619 per litre.
McTeague said the drop comes as a result of a decrease in the price of oil, as well as lowering prices in the United States.
Moving forward, McTeague expects prices to continue to drop into the beginning of August but says they will pick back up as summer closes.
“We could see another five, perhaps eight cent decrease down,” he said. “I would think that by the second or third week of August, we could actually start seeing prices move back up.
“I think we’re going to be looking at much higher prices for all fuels after the summer, which is counterintuitive. Normally, summertime, we see these prices rise.”
The average price per litre this time last year was roughly 35 cents cheaper than it is now.