Jump at the pump ahead of Easter long weekend

Bunnies aren’t the only thing jumping this weekend — so are gas prices.

Fuel increased in Regina throughout the day on Thursday ahead of the long weekend. The price of gas at some stations went from 108.4 cents per litre to 118.9 cents per litre.

Gasbuddy.com’s Dan McTeague said he hates to point fingers but the rise at the pump — conveniently before the long weekend — is due to gas station owners.

“Gas stations have to take a lot of the responsibility for this, they knew that those wholesale price increases were coming throughout the week,” he said. “They’ve been up about five cents a litre … they do themselves no favours by trying to hold off to the bitter end to compete to get a few extra sales then suddenly, come the long weekend, they jack prices up.”

McTeague said there’s been no change in prices from major petroleum companies as they happened earlier in the week to reflect the higher cost of gasoline. He said essentially it was a delayed reaction from stations to take advantage of the demand.

He added gas in the Queen City should drop about six to eight cents over the next four to five days.