{"id":637628,"date":"2026-04-30T02:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637628\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T02:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:21:13","slug":"outrageous-alberta-motorists-shocked-by-overnight-gas-price-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637628\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Outrageous\u2019: Alberta motorists shocked by overnight gas price spike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many Albertans who stopped to fill up their vehicle Wednesday morning were likely suffering from sticker shock.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While the website gasbuddy.com said the cheapest price for a litre of gasoline in Edmonton<\/a> was around $1.50 per litre on Wednesday, at many others it spiked overnight to as much $184.9 per litre.<\/p>\n

In Calgary, according to GasBuddy<\/a>, the cheapest price for a litre on Wednesday was just under $1.60, but at others the price jumped by more than 30 cents overnight to about $186.9. per litre.<\/p>\n

While that\u2019s still relatively cheaper than Vancouver where gasbuddy.com said the lowest price for a litre of gas was $207.9,<\/a>\u00a0it\u2019s also significantly more expensive than Toronto<\/a>, where the cheapest price on Wednesday was $159.6 per litre.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuel is outrageous right now. It\u2019s a little bit uncontrollable,\u201d said Francois Saad as he topped his SUV in Edmonton Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI drive a pretty old car, all things considered, but yeah, it\u2019s about $140, sometimes $160 to fill up at least 50 to 60 litres.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that is despite the 10 cent cut to the federal excise tax on gasoline that took effect on April 20<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cOutrageous\u201d is how Edmonton motorist Francois Saad reacted to the price of gas at many stations in Edmonton jumping by more than 30 cents overnight.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

While a jump in price of more than 30 cents a litre between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning may seem extreme, one industry analyst who spoke to Global News said the higher prices are likely the new normal \u2014 because of the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on is, of course, the Strait of Hormuz has not been opened and so global supply remains low,\u201d said Richard Masson, former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, a number of refineries that normally we\u2019d be producing got damaged during the war already, and\u00a0 the kinds of oil that are getting to refineries don\u2019t fit as well as what happened before the war. So they don\u2019t get to make all the gasoline and diesel that they would like to given different kinds of feedstock.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As for the difference in price between Calgary and Edmonton, Masson said Edmonton is where the refineries are, and refined products like gasoline need to be shipped by pipeline or truck to other markets, like Calgary.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not happy about it (but) obviously we\u2019re reliant on it,\u201d said Lisa Gaffney about the cost of filling up her SUV at an Edmonton Mobil station.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to be able to afford an EV. I think it\u2019ll be good when we get to using more EVs and having more EV chargers around and not reliant on gas quite so much,\u201d added Gaffney.<\/p>\n

That was a similar sentiment among many of the drivers Global News spoke with.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re already at the point of looking at an EV. We have been for a while.\u00a0 It has kind of been in the background, but now it\u2019s like we should really get one,\u201d said Thomas Helm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw like 75 per cent of the cost could be reduced if you go electric. If we\u2019re getting to like 100 bucks, 120 bucks for gas, it is a significant difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMany of the motorists who spoke to Global News on Wednesday said they are seriously thinking of buying an electric vehicle as a way to save money on \u201coutrageous\u201d gas prices.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, there are people who are going to just be fed up with this volatility and if you\u2019re commuting regularly every day and you don\u2019t really have a choice, you\u2019ve got to accept the prices that are there (so) an EV has the potential to reduce your ongoing operating costs,\u201d said Masson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPublic transit, for those who can access it is a great alternative. You know, cycling, those kind of things if you can do it. But mostly it\u2019s just going to be, it\u2019s like a tax. Higher gasoline prices, higher natural gas prices flow through to your bottom line right away. And it\u2019s like a tax increase. And effectively, you\u2019re going to have to cut somewhere else in your budget to keep things balanced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Masson recommends motorists also shop around, to find the lowest gas price because that type of pressure \u201chelps to keep prices down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIn Edmonton on Wednesday morning, many stations were selling gas a $182.9 per litre and it was even more expensive at many stations in Calgary at $185.9 per litre.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

However, \u201cthe big picture trend is higher prices,\u201d said Masson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the actual oil price right now at around $100 a barrel is a way too low for all the turmoil that the world is facing and is going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou know, the president has been trying to talk down the price. He often says, well, the war will be over in three days \u2014 and people believe him and the price doesn\u2019t go up. But the reality is we\u2019ve lost about a billion barrels of inventory,\u201d said Masson.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, Richard Masson, said higher prices for gasoline are likely the new normal, at least for the next few months.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t be sure if they say the Strait (of Hormuz) is going to open up, that it won\u2019t get closed again and there\u2019s insurance issues and crewing issues and the tankers are all out of position all over the world, and so it\u2019s not going to be a flick of the switch to come back to normal. There\u2019s going to be a new normal,\u201d added Masson.<\/p>\n

The price of the U.S. benchmark crude West Texas Intermediate, for June delivery, increased Wednesday by almost US$7 per barrel to US$106.88, while the price of the Brent Crude jumped briefly above US$120 before settling back to around US$118 per barrel.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:49
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHigh fuel costs weigh on summer travel plans\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Albertans who stopped to fill up their vehicle Wednesday morning were likely suffering from sticker shock. While…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1849,46,6661,43,134,44,9891,714,41,39,42,40,1890],"class_list":["post-637628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-consumer","tag-economy","tag-gasoline-prices","tag-headlines","tag-money","tag-news","tag-oil-prices","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}