Expect lower gas prices with Blaine refinery up and running
Posted June 1, 2012 3:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BLAINE,WA (NEWS1130) – The price you pay for gas could go down by month’s end now that a big refinery in Blaine, Washington, is back online.
This as Lower Mainland drivers pay up to $1.50 a litre for gas.
BP’s Cherry Point Refinery was hit by a massive fire in February but the company says normal operations have resumed after repairs were finished in May.
The shutdown is believed to be one reason gas prices have been higher on the US and Canadian west coasts recently.
Oil and gas analyst Michael Ervin with MJ Ervin & Associates says prices here will go down with Cherry Point up and running again.
“I should think within the next two to four weeks,” Ervin says. “Right now, wholesale prices in BC are about ten cents per litre higher than in Central Canada.”
Ervin says Cherry Point’s shutdown hit the North American west coast hard.
“The problem with [Cherry Point] certainly has been the single biggest factor behind higher wholesale prices in BC and higher wholesale prices on the US West Coast,” Ervin adds. “It’s a very big refinery in terms of its production capacity, so with it returning online, that’s going to have the opposite effect, and that is that wholesale prices relative to the rest of Canada and the United States are likely to return back down to what levels they would normally be at with that production back [online.]”
Cherry Point produces 20 per cent of Washington State’s gasoline needs and supplies most of the jet fuel for Vancouver International Airport as well as Sea-Tac and Portland airports.
