Who's to blame for costly oil? The Saudis, Russia and Donald Trump himself<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nVancouver is the biggest city in British Columbia. The province imports roughly 60 per cent of its refined fuels from oil-rich Alberta, another 10 per cent from U.S. refineries across the border, and constrained transportation capacity has long meant the city pays among the highest fuel prices in the nation.<\/p>\n
Yet prices could surge even higher: B.C.’s opposition to an expansion of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline could see Alberta cutting off fuel shipments to its neighbour amid an escalating dispute.<\/p>\n
B.C.’s biggest refinery \u2014 Parkland Fuel Corp.’s Burnaby plant which accounts for a quarter of the province’s transportation fuel \u2014 underwent a once-in-a-decade maintenance overhaul and only just resumed operations on April 9. About 35 per cent of Washington state’s refining capacity is offline, according to Bloomberg data, and a weakening loonie makes U.S. imports more expensive. Wholesale prices in the Pacific Northwest region are up 20 cents a gallon since April 9, according to GasBuddy’s McTeague.<\/p>\n
“Vancouver has a serious supply problem even with all things back to normal,” says McTeague who predicts prices will surge even higher in the summer driving season.<\/p>\n
Then there’s taxes.<\/p>\n
As of last May, Vancouver had Canada’s fourth highest taxes on motor fuel, and a new carbon tax that kicked in this month probably bumped it to second place after Montreal, said Jeff Bowes, research director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. That includes a $0.17 per-litre levy that helps fund the local public transit authority, TransLink, one of only three jurisdictions in the country to have such a component.<\/p>\n
“Vancouver’s a strange combination \u2014 it has both high fuel costs and high taxes,” said Bowes. “That’s what makes it so expensive.”<\/p>\n
Bloomberg.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just 750 miles from the oilsands, Vancouverites pay more than drivers in any other major oil-producing nation except Norway<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8068,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066\/revisions\/8068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}