Gas prices creeping back up across Canada

Gas prices are shown at a gas station in Beaverton, Ontario, on Saturday Dec. 20, 2014. (Doug Ives / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

CALGARY -- It was too good to last -- bargain gasoline prices are creeping back up.

Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst at Gasbuddy.com, says wholesale gasoline prices are in for a two- to three-cent overnight increase across the country, which should filter through to consumers shortly thereafter.

Prices have already been on the upswing. According to the price-tracking website, the national average for a litre of regular is up 3.6 cents from a week ago at around 93 cents a litre.

Compared with last week, gasoline in Vancouver is up five and a half cents, while in Toronto it's up four and a half cents.

Meanwhile, the price of benchmark crude oil is up for a third straight day, surging to just above US$53 a barrel although still about half of what it was back in June.

McTeague says he's given up on looking at supply and demand fundamentals as a driver for pump prices and that financial speculation has a lot more to do with it. Another fuel price watcher, En-Pro International's Roger McKnight, says gas prices tend to rise like a rocket when crude increase, but fall like a feather when crude decreases.