As N.L. gas prices rise again, this industry expert says: get used to it
CBC
An industry expert says he doesn't believe gas prices will come down any time soon, as the maximum price of regular gas increased again in Newfoundland and Labrador on Thursday by 2.2 cents per litre, marking another record high for the province.
Patrick De Haan is the head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, a gas price tracker that operates apps and websites based on finding real-time fuel prices in the United States, Canada and Australia.
"We continue to live in this COVID era where there are various bottlenecks, various challenges and various imbalances that arise," De Haan told CBC News from his office in Chicago.
"Some of the newest factors now were completely unexpected several months ago. We have a looming energy crunch developing overseas where China is looking at a quite low amount of coal to feed their power plants, there's a natural gas shortage in Europe and all of that is supporting the price of oil simply because crude oil can be used as a backup to generate electricity or it can be used to heat homes."
De Haan said the price of crude oil continues to rise based on global demand and because the energy crunch is "likely to continue to accelerate" with oil production lagging behind.
Gas prices are rising everywhere in Canada, not just in Newfoundland and Labrador, De Haan said. The average price in Canada is $1.45 a litre.
In Newfoundland, the maximum price of gas is now more than $1.60 a litre across the island on Thursday as part of the the Public Utilities Board weekly price-setting — $1.612 on the Avalon Peninsula, $1.638 in central, $1.62 in the Corner Brook area and $1.63 to $1.65 in parts of the Northern Peninsula.
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