CNS Canada –– Despite a recent spike of up to 20 cents per litre more for gasoline in some Prairie centres, diesel isn’t expected to follow the same trajectory.
“For every three cents that gasoline has gone up, diesel has gone up one,” explained Dan McTeague of GasBuddy.com in Toronto.
On average, gas prices jumped 14 cents a litre across much of Canada on Monday. Diesel, on average, has gone just 4.7 cents higher, McTeague said. “So that three-to-one ratio is bang on.”
Reasons given for the spike in gasoline include a leaking Enbridge pipeline, backing up supplies of Canadian crude.
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Last Saturday’s breakdown of a crude distillation unit at a BP refinery in Indiana, with capacity to handle 413,000 barrels of crude per day, was also a catalyst.
Sources say the damage to the plant at Whiting, just south of Chicago, will take at least a month to repair.
Currency issues and the busy North American summer travel season were also factors leading to the surge in gas prices.
Still, McTeague said he doesn’t expect diesel will be drastically affected by those issues.
“There’s a lot of it out there this year (and the) Energy Information Petroleum Report makes it look like we’re well stocked,” he said.
Some pressure could come from future harvest activity, according to McTeague, but otherwise conditions appear calm.
“Nothing is pushing diesel up right now, anywhere.”
— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follows CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.
