Article content

Drivers in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland are feeling the effects of chronic fuel supply constraints as prices crest $1.50 a litre in some locations, hovering close to record highs.

And at least one analyst believes they could climb further still.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Vancouver gas prices surge to $1.50 a litre — highest in Canada — amid supply constraints, depressed loonie Back to video

“It underscores the real big problem in southwestern British Columbia and that’s that they’re chronically short of gasoline and other fuels,” said GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst Dan McTeague, who believes prices will rise even higher.

The current spike, in a season of generally lower demand, is caused in part by the outage of a Burnaby, B.C., refinery that Parkland Fuel bought from Chevron in November, he said.

The 55,000 barrel-a-day refinery, which McTeague says supplies about a quarter of demand in the region, has been down for planned maintenance since early February and the company doesn’t expect to have it fully running again until the end of March.