N.B. gas prices to drop after staff member in premier’s office finds pricing mistake

Staff member of New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt’s office found a way to cut the cost of gas in the province.

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says it was a staff member in her office that discovered a way to make gas cheaper before Christmas.

On Tuesday, staff members going through the Petroleum Products Pricing Act found they were calculating the maximum price of fuel based on conventional gas. The blend of gasoline more commonly being used across the province is E10 – a cheaper blend of ethanol and gasoline.

By Thursday, cabinet changed the regulation. As of next Friday, the price of gas in New Brunswick will be based on E10.

“I’m incredibly happy that someone who was looking at the very details of the act found this opportunity, and we could move quickly on it to save New Brunswickers five, maybe six, maybe seven cents come next Friday,” she said.

The amount of the savings will depend on the market.

Holt says the price change was made by Nova Scotia last year.

This is the Holt government’s second attempt at making gas cheaper. It removed the cost of the carbon adjuster on Dec. 1 but the Energy and Utilities Board replaced it with another surcharge because some retailers said they might not survive the hit to their bottom line.

Holt says this change will likely impact producers.

“It’ll come out in the end likely to the refineries,” she said. “But because they’re used to working on that moving benchmark, I think it’s part of the cost of doing business.”

Green Leader David Coon says it means New Brunswickers have been overpaying at the pumps.

“We were being charged, apparently, for gasoline without ethanol,” Coon said. “Now, gas stations across the province have been using for some time 10 per cent ethanol and some 15 per cent, which is a savings, which was not being passed on to the customers. So where did that money go?”

Holt could only say the mistake wasn’t caught until now.

“I wish that it had been noticed by the Higgs government or by our team at the time when Nova Scotia made the change because I think it could have and should have been done then,” she said. “I’m really grateful, to my teammate who noticed this.”

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