VANCOUVER -- Gas prices across Metro Vancouver have fallen an average of 10 cents a litre since late last week, as oil prices took their largest single-day tumble since the 1991 Gulf War.
On Monday, Gasbuddy.com listed the average price of a litre of regular gas in Vancouver at 137.5 cents, and CTV News found multiple stations in Burnaby selling below that price.
“It’s been a good week in Vancouver,” said Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, who tracks gas prices across the country. “It’s an island of hope in the middle of a churning storm that I think is likely to lead to significant economic problems.”
The reason both West Texas Intermediate and global benchmark Brent dropped nearly 25 per cent in trading on Monday: a one-two punch of a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, combined with decreased global demand for oil because of the novel coronavirus.
Oil shocks translated into a sharp stock sell-off, with Canadian stocks having their worst day since the Black Monday crash of October 1987. At the close the TSX was down over 10 per cent. The Dow Jones was down 7.79 per cent, and the S&P 500 down 7.60 per cent.
Trading was temporarily halted in New York and Toronto earlier Monday after the sell-off tripped so-called circuit breakers.
“People are racing for safe assets right now, and just unloading anything that has the tiniest whiff or risk,” said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University.
McTeague forecasts that gas prices in Metro Vancouver will drop an additional 10 cents a litre by Wednesday morning, but said behind that price drop “lurks a far more dangerous economic future.”
“It becomes bad when you see the Canadian dollar lose two or three cents in value,” McTeague said, when asked if he saw the gas price drop as a glass half full or glass half empty scenario. “That adds to the cost of living,” including making gas and groceries more expensive, he said.
