‘Don’t wait until tomorrow’: Price of gas in the GTA to shoot up again overnight: expert

Dan McTeague, the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, is pictured next to a person pumping in Mississauga. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov)

Gas prices in the Greater Toronto Area are expected to rise by eight cents per litre overnight following a brief reprieve in recent days, an industry analyst says.

Dan McTeague, who is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, told CP24 that he expects the average cost of a litre of regular gas in the GTA will hit 177.9 cents per litre on Wednesday and could rise another two or three cents per litre on Thursday.

“Every time it’s a talk of a deal, prices drop. We’ve seen it sort of happen the past about 93 days since the (Iran) war began,” he said.

“And then, like every other talk of a deal, rumour of a deal, it collapses, and when it collapses, the price has to go back up. That’s simply because the world is draining rapidly reserve supplies of oil.”

Buy gas now, says industry analyst

McTeague urged anyone who is planning to take advantage of last week’s lower gas prices to do it now. The best time to buy gas, he noted, is anytime after 6 p.m.

“Don’t wait until tomorrow, but certainly not till Thursday. It looks like prices are now heading back up more, more rapidly than I think most are comfortable with,” he added.

Heading into the summer, the industry analyst says he expects the volatility of the market will continue.

“They (the oil markets) are worried about what happens when the Strait of Hormuz opens and there’s a massive peace deal and everything goes back to normal. We still have the damage that is done and it’s significant,” McTeague explained.

He said this conflict has not only caused a bottleneck of oil-carrying vessels around the world but has also resulted in the draining of strategic, emergency oil reserves.

“It’s going to take a long time for that to be replenished under law. It’s also going to require a little bit more patience from everyone to recognize that it’s not just gasoline, it’s jet fuel, it’s diesel,” McTeague said.

“The world’s short of a 1.6 billion barrels of oil and sooner or later that’s going to have to start to show up, even here in North American (oil) markets.”

McTeague added that while Americans produce 13 million barrels of oil a day, they consume 21 million barrels, so there is a heavy reliance on other countries, including Canada, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries for fuel.

“We are in for some very difficult times ahead and this is really only delaying the inevitable. it’s short term gains, like we saw this weekend, for long-term pains,” he said.