Gas prices in Toronto likely to break record in coming weeks: analyst

Canadians for Affordable Energy President Dan McTeague on the outlook for gas prices as the cost of filling up surges ahead of the holiday weekend.

The high price of gas in and around Toronto could break a record this summer amid peak driving season, warns one energy expert.

A litre of regular gas in the Greater Toronto Area is currently selling for 189.9 cents and will jump another four cents overnight to 194.9 cents per litre, Canadians for Affordable Energy President Dan McTeague told CP24 on Wednesday.

He predicts prices will continue to rise and reach new heights as the warmer weather arrives due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

“We are going to break the record of 215.9 (cents) set on June 11th, 2022. I think 220 (cents per litre) maybe the number we see throughout much of the summer, especially after summer demand driving season gets kicked off,” he said. The previous record was set months after the war in Ukraine began.

Now in its third month, the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran has effectively resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which 20 per cent of the global oil supply once travelled through.

McTeague believes that even if a peace agreement is brokered in the near future, the damage to oil infrastructure in the area and global shortage of oil isn’t likely to be remedied quickly.

“It’s not just a question of the agreement, it’s how long it takes for those (oil) fields to be restored, how much that infrastructure has been damaged, the extent to which it’s going to take several months for those things to be fixed,” he said.

“I think 2026 is actually a write off, and we’re going to see much higher prices than most of us are comfortable with.”