Why Canadian gas prices could spike next week

CTV News Channel: Gas spike coming? Petroleum analyst Roger McKnight predicts a spike in gas prices on Wednesday if hurricane damage is bad as predicted.

A leading petroleum analyst says a hurricane impacting Texas could cause gas prices in Canada to climb substantially as early as next week.

Dan McTeague of GasBuddy.com tells CTV News Channel that Hurricane Harvey has a dozen or so refineries in its path that collectively supply as much as 30 per cent of U.S. gasoline.

McTeague says that the refineries can withstand even Category 5 storms, but flooding could shut them down for days or even weeks.

McTeague says the Texas refineries supply major cities as far away as New York and Boston so shutdowns in Texas would put pressure on refineries in Atlantic Canada and Ontario that also serve the U.S.

“That could mean higher prices for Canadians as we’re going to have to try and scramble around the world to get that extra supply,” he said.

McTeague suggested that the 12-cent-a-litre spike observed in Canada when Hurricane Ike shut down Texas refineries in 2008 “would certainly not be out of the extraordinary.”

He adds that Canadians won’t know for sure what will happen until “at least Wednesday,” after analysts have had a couple of days to assess the hurricane’s damage.