Gas price near bottom: fuel manager
Published Saturday January 3rd, 2009
Driving Wilson Fuels official expects price to stay below dollar mark for winter
SAINT JOHN - It's been called the weather's replacement for a fall-back, small-talk subject, and the five-year low gas price of 65.9 cents a litre is certainly a topic that has people talking.
But how low can the gasoline limbo pole go? Not much further, says a local fuel company manager.
"We're finding our way to the bottom, if we're not at the bottom now," said Kevin McCann, the New Brunswick general manager for Wilson Fuels, an Atlantic Canadian wholesaler.
The main cause for the low prices is motorists are not buying as much gas, and while the low prices may only seem like more incentive to drive for people in the Saint John area, overall demand in North America and the world is down.
McCann said it is important to remember gasoline is a commodity.
"It trades on the market much like Scotiabank of Royal Bank or any company trades. So really what drives those commodities are supply and demand.
"Right now everything seems to be fairly good on the supply side, it's just demand is fairly weak right now."
But that demand will likely improve as economies around the world recover from their downturns, McCann said, and the prices will begin to rise again.
"I know most governments have stepped in with stimulus packages. (But) it takes a while for those to work their way through the system.
"That being said, I don't see ourselves returning to $1.42 anytime soon. January, February, March, I would say we will wallow firmly below the dollar mark and it's hard to predict beyond that."
But the price could change, depending on the conflict on the Gaza Strip.
"That could cause some supply issues because a third of the world's oil comes through there," McCann said. "If that problem escalates itsel, who knows what could happen on the supply side."
But even with that uncertainty, McCann expects the price of gas will stay below a dollar per litre this winter.
"It's a good low price right now for consumers," he said.
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (8)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
However price fixing by the only supplier does.Say this with me MONOPOLY.
PS, why have food prices not gone down? Why have power rates not gone down? Why have taxi rates not fallen? etc, etc, etc. Seems these businesses cry to high heaven that they cannot make money and survive when the price of gas is high, but now that it is at a 5 year low, these companies are being very quiet and reeling it profits off of us.
"That could cause some supply issues because a third of the world's oil comes through there," McCann said. "If that problem escalates itsel, who knows what could happen on the supply side."
This statement by McCann kills me. He better get a map out and study it.