An Oshawa gas station saw its pumps run dry Tuesday afternoon after motorists frantically filled their tanks in anticipation of a wallet-busting 4.5-cent fuel increase at pumps across southern Ontario.

At nearly $1.30 per litre, Tuesday’s fill-up at the Oshawa Petro Canada was hardly a bargain. But fear of a crippling price jump to 140.1 cents per litre — an eight per cent increase from this time last year — kept business bustling until the gas ran out.

“It was really busy. A lot of people heard about it,” said Petro Canada attendant Mukun Mathiya.

The forecast from En-Pro International Inc. analyst Roger McKnight came at a time of unseasonably-high gas bills for drivers in Ontario and across the country. Canadian gas prices hit the highest level since mid-2008 in late March, an 11-cent per litre increase from the same time last year, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

“It’s probably the biggest increase I’ve seen since Hurricane Katrina when things went completely crazy,” said McKnight of Wednesday’s predicted price jump. “And there’s no end in sight.”

McKnight said he anticipated prices would continue to rise beyond 140.1 cents and peak at between $1.43 and $1.47 per litre by April.

The website Tomorrow's Gas Price Today also predicted a “dramatic increase” in gas prices to hit pumps Wednesday, with stations across the Greater Toronto Area expected to see a 4.5-cent increase in price.

Gas prices typically spike in early spring as driving season kicks into gear and refineries close their doors and switch fuel production from diesel to gasoline for the summer months.

According to the Tomorrow's Gas Price Today website, the industry cited “the conversion from winter to summer gas” as reason for the price spike — but the website called that explanation a “well-worn excuse” used to “ding motorists safe in the knowledge that no one will challenge this nonsense.”

McKnight attributed Wednesday’s predicted increase to a lead Ontario supplier’s decision to increase wholesale prices by 4 cents — which translates to a 4.5 cent increase at the pump with harmonized sales tax included.

“Somebody’s the leader and everybody else follows,” he said. “And a certain leader in Ontario is boosting their wholesale prices.”

He also pointed to a confluence of forces that have kept prices at a higher-than-average rate so far this year — the growing demand for crude oil, a shortage of refining capacity in the United States after several refineries shut down in recent months, decreasing imports of oil to the U.S. and political instability in the Middle East, for example.

Dustin Coupal, cofounder of GasBuddy.com, said those forces have been reflecting in rising prices at gas pumps across Canada.

“The reality is that there’s a lot of ‘up-pressure’ on the market, especially in central and western Canada,” Coupal said, adding that the “up-pressure” had already begun to ripple into eastern Canada.

Coupal said he expected that motorists would see “a bit of short-term relief” in terms of gas prices after the long weekend. “But we haven’t seen the highest prices of the year yet,” he said.

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Consumer frustration over rising gas prices has generated an email petition calling on motorists to boycott two of Canada’s major fuel companies — Esso and Petro Canada — starting May 1. The goal of the boycott, according to the email, is to force the companies to drop their prices down to $1 per litre.

McKnight, who previously worked in senior management roles at Texaco and Esso, called the two-supplier boycott plan “a great idea.”