Gas prices in GTA expected to reach an all-time high Friday

The price of gas in the Greater Toronto Area is set to reach another record high today and it’s unlikely that drivers will get relief at the pumps anytime soon, according to one industry analyst.

Dan McTeague, who is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, told CP24 on Thursday that the average price of a litre of gas across the GTA is set to rise more than two cents overnight to reach a new record high of $1.51.9.

That surpasses the last record high of $1.49.9 that was set back on Nov. 4, prior to the detection of the Omicron variant.

“COVID, especially Omicron, really kicked down the road an earlier move towards $90 a barrel. It basically had markets believing that we'd be going back to lockdowns and nothing of the sort really happened so this is really pent up demand coming back with a vengeance,” McTeague said.

“Whether we like it or not when countries like the United States are short 1.4 million barrels of production a day from where they were pre-COVID you can kind of see what happens when demand takes over.”

McTeague said that the rise in gas prices is being driven by several factors, including a global shortage of oil and recent “geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine.”

He said that by the end of the year gas prices in the GTA could reach an average of $1.65 a litre, especially once the federal government’s new Clean Fuel Standard comes into effect in December, 2022.

“These prices are not likely to come back down,” he warned.