Gas prices in Alberta are expected to jump overnight. Senior petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com Dan McTeague says it looks like a four to six cent a litre increase. That likely means a wholesale price back above 62 cents a litre, or even more if retailers add the full 12 cent a litre margin.
“They do usually as a response to several days of low, below cost retail margins, so that’s really for people to understand; when you get a big move of four cents a litre on the wholesale side it tends to set off a bit of an avalanche from the retail side with retailers trying to reclaim what they’ve lost over the past couple of weeks.”
McTeague says they’ve seen the wholesale price for gasoline in the upper mid-western US spike about 24 cents a litre over the past couple of days. He explains their prices tend to get reflected by our refineries in Edmonton and get passed on within 24 hours. However, he adds that Grande Prairie is an odd market in that it has low, medium and high prices.
“They all pay the same taxes and they all pretty much pay the same wholesale price for their gasoline. The only big difference is who’s offering what and the differences tend to be the big retail margins; some offer very little and use gasoline as a loss leader, some get by with what they need, others simply use gasoline retail margins as their primary business.”
The average price of gas in Alberta is currently around 66 cents a litre. McTeague recommends topping up if you pass a station below the 60 cent mark.