We could pay $2 per litre for gas, if Alberta follows through on threat to turn off taps

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – If you’re unhappy about the surge we’ve seen in gas prices this week in Metro Vancouver, you won’t be happy about yesterday’s threat from Alberta to restrict or even cut off petroleum exports.

If that were to happen, the results would swift and dramatic.

“The impact would be at the very least a $2 a litre potential for most gas stations, if you could in fact find gas at most stations,” says GasBuddy.com petroleum analyst Dan McTeague.

“Kinder Morgan’s existing Trans Mountain pipeline provides about 40 per cent of all the gasoline needs to the Lower Mainland. So if you take that out of the equation that would be more than disruptive.”

He uses the term “devastating consequences” to describe what could happen to our economy.

“You can’t deliver gasoline by vessel into the port at Vancouver nor can you expect that rail will make up the difference simply because it’s logjammed. At the end of the day, this is likely not just to affect motorists and drivers but also affect transportation, agriculture, mining, ferries.”

That threat was outlined in Alberta’s thrown speech and made over BC’s decision to try and block or restrict bitumen shipments through this province.

Premier Rachel Notley didn’t say for certain she would follow through with the measures.

McTeague reiterates if that happens, the response would be sudden.

“Two dollars a litre would be quite the shocker, I think, for many. But it would be more than that because it would have to be passed on. One could think here that transportation outside the Greater Vancouver Area would be affected. Agriculture, mining, everything else that would be effected by this, it’s not a situation I think that many of us would want to see.”