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Metro Vancouver gas prices expected to rise to near-record high after slight dip

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Gas prices in Metro Vancouver are predicted to rise close to record breaking levels Thursday after dipping slightly in recent days.

B.C. set a new record for a gas prices two days in a row late last week when they climbed to 239.9 cents per litre on Thursday, then 241.9 on Friday. The previous record of 236.9 was set in June.

While prices dipped over the weekend and at the start of the week, getting to 235.9 cents per litre in Metro Vancouver on Wednesday, price-prediction website Gas Wizard says they're expected to jump up five cents to be just shy of the new record.

The recent surge in the cost of gas has been blamed on local factors in the Pacific Northwest – specifically maintenance on a major refinery and pipeline. Prices elsewhere in Canada have not been spiking as dramatically.

"It is driven only by local factors here on the West Coast and generally in North America. It has nothing to do with international oil markets this time," Werner Antweiler, an economics professor at UBC's Sauder School of Business, told CTV News Vancouver last week.

The Greater Vancouver region has the highest prices in the country as of Wednesday, according to a heat map from GasBuddy.com.

Compared to Vancouver's 235.9, prices were 162.9 in Toronto and 159.9 in Calgary on Wednesday, according to Gas Wizard. 

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