The average retail price of gasoline hasn’t moved in the past week according to GasBuddy.com’s daily survey of 81 outlets in Saskatoon. On the other hand, nationally, gas prices have increased, on average, 3.3 cents per litre.

Including Sunday’s average of daily gas prices, prices yesterday were 13.3 c/L lower than the same day one year ago and are 1.9 c/L lower than a month ago.

Head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy is Patrick De Haan forecasts the upward trend to continue for much of the rest of spring but once the transition to summer gasoline and refinery maintenance conclude, “April and May jumps could bring June slumps”.  For diesel, De Haan says the national average price of diesel is continuing to drop. Diesel is now at its narrowest difference to gasoline in over 13 months.

GasBuddy points to a slow climb in the national average price of gasoline with the majority of provinces seeing average prices climb in the last week. He says prices are being pushed up not only due to increased demand as the temperatures get warmer but also from oil prices which De Haan says have risen over 20 per cent in the last month. He says that increase is primarily driven by OPEC’s surprise decision a week ago to cut oil production.