Short-term relief at the pumps

Gas prices are bucking a trend over the next few days and will actually be dropping.

“It’s something you just don`t see this time of year when demand is high and change to summer gasoline. We tend to see prices making their inevitable increase,” said President of Canadians for Affordable Energy Dan McTeague.

The price at the pump is expected to drop by nearly 10 cents before the weekend, which is not a normal occurrence for this time of the year. However, there are several reasons for the sudden decrease in price, according to McTeague.

“The U.S., U.S., U.S., and U.S. Let me explain that,” said McTeague. “The U.S. [federal government] raised interest rates, [there are] concerns about the banking crisis in the United States, inflation in the United States, a recession in the United States.”

And perhaps the biggest reason is the possibility of the U.S. government potentially shutting down in 10 days if a deal is not made to raise the debt ceiling. Local buyers welcome the lower prices but are skeptical of the cause.

“No, it’s nowhere near where it’s supposed to be, and it may never get there again, but since COVID, everything is kind of changing. They use a lot of different excuses, the Ukraine war is even pushed in there,” said Randy Tuner as he filled up his work vehicle.

Other customers rely on trends of which days of the week are best to fill up, especially in the summer.

“I know Mondays are usually our best days, and Friday is usually the worst, because of the weekend and they want to go up,” said Ian Donker.

McTeague cautioned, however, that normal behaviour is out the window and this summer is too unpredictable to make a forecast on what prices will do.

“It’s really a mugs game to try and put together what you would normally think of which is the way which you can predict prices,” said McTeague. “I’ve been doing this almost 30 years now; it’s certainly more difficult and more challenging than any time I’ve seen in the past.”

If political and economic issues in the U.S. stabilize, McTeague expects prices to surge during the summer, but there are so many unknown factors to accurately determine what will happen in the coming months.