Gas prices expected to temporarily decrease on Friday

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Drivers in the GTA may want to hold off on topping up their tanks for a couple more days. Prices at the pumps are set to tumble on Friday, according to Canadians for Affordable Energy President Dan McTeague. He says the cost of gas will drop 9 cents a liter to an average of a dollar 82 cents. McTeague is also forecasting a 9 cent a liter decline in the price of diesel. And for more on this, we are joined none other by Dan McTeague, President of Canadians for Affordable Energy. Thank you so much, Dan, for joining us this evening.

[00:00:33]Tell us why this drop is happening.

[00:00:36]Well, Arda, it's a bit of a surprise.

[00:00:37]The market saw a real significant, almost historical draw, that is a a knockdown in terms of inventories in the United States, and that's critical because it determines the price of gas and diesel and pretty much everything else as far as energy is concerned throughout North America. We saw a major drop, which means that they're running out. It doesn't necessarily mean they're running out overnight. And you'd normally have a rise in price. Prices would respond by saying, "Hey, drop in in supply means uh we've got to do something about demand."

[00:01:06]But it didn't. In fact, prices went the same route. Uh they sold off 6 7 dollars a barrel, and uh the effect was about a 20 cent a gallon decrease, which is good enough for a 9 cent net decrease at the pumps come Friday. Meaning, of course, if you're paying today a dollar 91 dollar 92.9, you're going to be paying a dollar 81.9 uh come Friday. Tomorrow, no change in price. Diesel was up 4 cents.

[00:01:31]But as you mentioned at the outset, a 9 cent net decrease on Friday for both diesel and gasoline. Okay, how long is this uh supposed to last, this drop in price?

[00:01:42]Arda, it's what markets do, especially traders who, you know, are operating behind screens, making decisions as to based on headlines. They seem to be uh going for the head fake every time, you know.

[00:01:54]The President of the United States says there's an end to the war and a peace agreement is right around the corner.

[00:01:58]Things are getting better. We're going to have a 30-day, you know, extension of a ceasefire and suddenly, you know, the price of oil is worthless.

[00:02:06]But, the reality is that the world's missing 1.6 billion barrels of oil. What does that mean? That's the equivalent of not anyone using any form of oil for a full 16 days anywhere in the world. So, it's very serious and it means that the gas prices could go up not as much, but we could see a scenario where Saturday goes up 2-3 cents a liter or Sunday another 2-3 cents a liter before we go back to this sort of roller coaster, this yo-yo of up and down based on the last musings, the last of jawboning of un- unnamed sources in the White House or wherever. The reality is that prices have to continue to go up to reflect the reality that there's a major shortage around the world and it's not getting any better the longer this goes.

[00:02:48]Okay, so let's say things are resolved in the next little while. Do you foresee the roller coaster continuing throughout the summer if things are resolved in the Middle East?

[00:02:58]Well, no.

[00:03:00]I think they will probably stabilize somewhere in the vicinity of what we're paying today. No higher, no lower and that's because to fill that gap of 1.6 billion barrels, it's going to take several months. A lot of countries don't have the capacity, especially in the Persian Gulf, to simply ramp up quickly overnight.

[00:03:18]Vessels, seaborne vessels take a long time to get around the world, several months. And some of those facilities are are actually damaged. So, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE as we know, Iran itself, even some of the pipelines in Saudi Arabia were affected. We also know Qatar has lost a serious declared force majeure at the beginning of the war because Iran struck its LNG facility.

[00:03:43]It's the largest single facility in the world. They're saying it may not be up and running for 2-3 years. So, all this means is that 2026 is a scratch. Energy prices are going to remain very high.

[00:03:53]The longer we see these sort of you know falling prices when it makes no economic fundamental sense as we saw today, the more serious and more aggravating the high prices are going to be in the foreseeable future. And that means a very expensive summer. We have to make our plans accordingly and prices are still going to stay like this right up until well into 2027. You know, so many families are being priced out of vacations, having wanting to go overseas, but they're planning probably road trips around our country, maybe south of the border.

[00:04:25]What do you think What would you What would your message be for those people who are relying on filling up their tank for a summer adventure?

[00:04:34]Well, plan ahead. Obviously, it's going to be a little bit more costly, especially in Canada versus the United States. We still have an HST here in Ontario for instance, which is 30% or 13% rather, which amounts to about 25 or 26 cents a liter. We also know that we have a weak Canadian dollar that at 137.4 cents to buy a US dollar adds about 40 cents a liter to the price of fuel and diesel and you can imagine what it's doing to other prices.

[00:05:01]I think there's also a concern if you're traveling by air to Europe or to Asia, you want to make sure that the the company is going to be able to honor its commitment. There are real severe shortages on the way that have already started to rear their ugly head. It may mean that flights are either canceled or worst-case scenario, you might be stranded. I wouldn't be surprised given that we're there many years ago to see Consular Affairs of Foreign Affairs or Global Affairs Canada issue some kind of travel advice to suggest be very cautious. I mean, most travel agencies take these precautions to make sure you're not stuck, but we are dealing with a severe and very critical shortage of many petroleum products around the world that most notably includes jet fuel and diesel. So, all those things combined could make for a very difficult summer. I think we're going to see a lot more people take the option of the staycation. Yeah, we already saw a number of different airlines scale back their summer flights. Thank you so much for this, Dan. We really appreciate your insight as usual. Dan McTeague is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.