Gas prices in many major Canadian cities continued to tick upward on Thursday and are expected to keep rising amid unrest in the oil-rich Middle East.
Oil prices shot up as high as US$103 a barrel on Thursday as traders were forced to question how bad the situation in Libya would get and whether the instability could spread to other oil-rich nations.
Toronto saw one of Canada's largest overnight increases, jumping 3.7 per cent to an average price of 121.4 cents per litre. This comes after climbing 2 cents per litre earlier in the week.
In Montreal, a litre of gas cost 126.4 cents per litre after a 7 cent jump earlier in the week. Ottawa's price had reached 120.1 cents per litre on Thursday, while London, Ont., reached a similar 121.4 cents per litre.
Dustin Coupal, co-founder of the gas station price monitoring website GasBuddy.com, said he's seen a major rise in the number of drivers seeking out the cheapest pumps.
"We've been struggling with our server load all day today, and yesterday as well," he told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel's Power Play. "We're probably seeing about 12 times the traffic we usually see, so people are scrambling to find the best deal on gas."
Coupal created GasBuddy.com on the idea that consumers, by actively choosing the cheapest gas pumps in their area, could boost competition and drive down prices.
However, Liberal MP Dan McTeague, an outspoken gas-price watchdog, said gas stations don't compete against one another. Instead, he favours government regulation.
"The question really is: Are the prices an accurate representation of supply and demand?" McTeague told Power Play. "Every week, the Americans produce the weekly petroleum status report. It gives you accountability for every drop of energy they import, export and produce. In Canada we have no such thing. We're basically flying blind."
He said rising costs are largely driven by speculation and unregulated markets.
The majority of Libyan oil is transported to Europe, however, the current spike comes amid fears that civil unrest in Libya will lead to the collapse of that country's oil exports. Libya is responsible for about two per cent of the world's oil production, but some major oil companies have already shut down operations in the region.
The violent upheaval in Libya has already taken 1.2 million barrels of oil off of the global market thanks to closed ports and shuttered energy plants.
That amount represents nearly a full day's work of production; the African country produces 1.6 million barrels in a day. Libya sits on one of the largest proven oil reserves in Africa.
Crude prices have jumped 20 per cent to two-year highs during the week that an uprising threatened the regime of Moammar Gadhafi and other big oil producers like Iran and Saudi Arabia were forced to wonder if they were next.
With files from The Associated Press
