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Flooding at a refinery south of the border is why you might have noticed higher gas prices at the pumps here in Saskatchewan.
Gas prices rose around 15 to 20 cents a litre over the weekend, to around $1.47 a litre in both Regina and Saskatoon.
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Gas Buddy Petroleum Analyst, Matt McClain, said flooding at a BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana, caused it to shut down last week, which in turn caused gas prices to jump in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and parts of the U.S.
“As with anything fuel, it takes a few days to start seeing a reflection, either in a good way or a bad way,” he said.
“In this case, for the past several days, it’s been more of a bad way, simply because the refinery has been offline and unable to produce petroleum products like gasoline and diesel, so that has created a bit of a hiccup in the price point.”
However, McClain is hopeful it is a “very limited” situation, as the refinery is in the process of being restarted this week.
“We are kind of all on the edge of our seats, because it’s really up to the inspectors to make sure that the refinery is good to go and back in full operation,” he said. “So we’re all just sitting and waiting. I’m sure even the folks and the executives at BP are probably wondering whether or not there was any damage as well.”
Provided the refinery gets back online and back to normal, McClain said prices should start to ease up as early as the Labour Day weekend, going down by one to three cents a litre.
“That’s the price point that we’ll start to see going down and then just whatever price point that you saw prior to the sudden jolt because of the refinery shutdown, we should slowly start to see that kick in over the coming probably week or two,” he said.
McClain said it will take several days for the refinery to start producing additional fuel, to rebalance the available supply.
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