The price of gas shot up another two cents overnight, but one energy analyst says the price isn’t done climbing as the conflict in the Middle East continues.
Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, predicted Friday that the cost of gas in the city, currently sitting at around $1.48/l, will go up by seven cents on Saturday, followed by another three cents on Sunday.
“Put this in perspective…that would make a 21-cent increase week over week, at least since Tuesday,” McTeague told Newstalk 1010 in an interview. The price of a litre of diesel, which McTeague has described as a “global workhorse” due to its use in heavy-duty trucks and the like, has increased by 45 cents/l over the same period of time, he said.
“(It’s) becoming less and less affordable by the moment,” McTeague said.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, has jumped from around US$70 late last week to around $90 on Friday following the U.S. military operation in Iran over the weekend. Meanwhile a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude climbed by 8.9 per cent on Friday to $88.20 a barrel.
Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which roughly one-fifth of the global oil supply passes through, following the attack.Energy experts have said that keeping that passageway open is vital to keeping oil prices down.
The last time Iran temporarily shut down parts of the strait in mid-February for a military drill, oil prices jumped about six per cent in the days that followed.
“The longer this goes, the greater the impact, and we’ll have reverberations in every corner of the planet, including Canada,” McTeague said.