Gas prices soar Wednesday

TORONTO, Ont. – Gas is selling across Ontario at near record prices, Wednesday. In the GTA, the price rose, on average, by 4.5 cents at midnight to $1.40 per litre.

En-Pro’s Roger McKnight told 680News the market has indicated that the price will jump because wholesale prices are at the highest level since April of last year, when gas in Toronto hit a record 140.8 cents per litre.

“Our refinery situation is an import situation. Even though demand is down for gasoline in both Canada and the United States, demand is high for exports, so all in all, gasoline inventories have to drop,” McKnight  said.

“It’s really based on an evaporation of refining capacity in the Pennsylvania area. You’re losing about a million barrels a day of crude production. Combine that with the situation in Europe with Petro Plus, where the four refineries shut down due to financial problems.”

McKnight is expecting another gas price increase Wednesday evening.

Should costs rise beyond the projected level, it will be the highest since 2008, when prices first spiked to an all time record of more than six cents in one night.

However, McKnight told 680News the price jump has nothing to do with gouging.

“Gasoline prices in Canada don’t recognize the 49th parallel. Everything is dependent on what happens in the wholesale market in the United States,” he explained.

680News took to the streets to find out how people plan on coping with the jump at the pumps, and most said this isn’t unexpected.

“It’s nothing new. Every summer we have this problem. Come summer, it gets better and we want to enjoy good driving here and there, and the gas prices go up,” one woman said. “What can we do?”

“What are you going to do?” agreed one man. “It’s up to the government to do something, but they don’t care because they make taxes and that, right?”

“Let’s boycott City Hall,” said another man. “You gotta pay, right? Ride a bike.”

On Tuesday,  680’s Kevin Misener made a stop at a gas station at Leslie Street and Carlaw Avenue, where all 12 pumps were taken by drivers eager to cash in on what will be considered cheap gas Wednesday morning.

Don said he cannot wrap his head around the 140.1 figure.

“That’s absolute robbery and I don’t see the government – well, there’s making a killing on it too, aren’t they? Every time it goes up they make more, so it’s not fair,” he told Misener.

Like many drivers, Cathy has a two can family. She already topped up her SUV and was working on filling up her Prius.

“It’s $50 to fill this car up now so when it goes up that’s another $5 or $10 and I have to drive kids to hockey so that’s a lot of driving. It adds up to a lot of money over the course of a year,” she explained.

But it was not just vehicles people will filling up to take advantage of the current price. One man filled up four 25 liter gas cans.

“That’ll do us for a couple weeks so that’s good,” he said.

The high price at the pumps is also affecting auto sales.