VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Don’t say we didn’t warn you. As expected, the price of gas shot up over the weekend to as much as 142.9 at many stations, a two-year high.
Higher prices may stick around past mid-week because of supply issues on the other side of the border.
Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, calls it a tale of two refineries in Washington State.
The Philips 66 refinery in Ferndale and BP’s much larger refinery in Cherry Point are both undergoing maintenance.
However, the work in Ferndale is taking longer than usual and scheduled work on the Cherry Point facility also includes a pipeline serving all four Washington State refineries.
“That’s given a lot of concern for suppliers who are scrambling to get enough gasoline to their stations in Washington State, Oregon, and, to a lesser extent, here in Vancouver,” McTeague says.
“It’s created a real crunch on the supply side and that’s what sent prices up about eight cents to nine cents a litre on the markets. Throw another two cents for retailers driving up their retail margins and there you have why we’ve seen an increase of 11 cents since Tuesday evening.”
McTeague says those prices will remain high through Wednesday as refinery maintenance continues.