CALGARY - Gasoline prices in some parts of Canada were creeping up on Thursday as the price of a benchmark barrel of oil hit set a new record -- US$100.09 -- a day after it burst through the triple-digit barrier for the first time in history.
The Canadian national average was around 107.16 cents per litre Thursday afternoon, about a cent higher than Wednesday, according to the website Gasbuddy.com, which tracks gasoline prices across Canada and the United States.
Drivers in some parts of the country are feeling the pinch more than others.
The average price in Newfoundland and Labrador shot up about three cents to 117.2 cents per litre from a day ago, going as high as 129.1 in southern Labrador.
Toronto-area consumers are also taking a hit. Pump prices jumped from 103.7 cents to 106.18 Thursday afternoon.
The Prairie provinces aren't seeing too much of a shift, with the average price in Alberta just shy of 98 cents per litre -- the lowest provincial average in the country.
There's some variation, though. Prices at two side-by-side stations in downtown Edmonton were 99.9 and 103.9 mid-morning Thursday.
Edmonton taxi driver Abdi Sheikh said the rising cost of gasoline is making it tough for him to do business.
"Right now, it's way different, you can't even afford to drive the car,'' he said while filling up his tank.
"All the time, when I'm driving, I'm scared of what's going to happen. Every single day it's more and more and more.''
In New Brunswick gas cost about 108.46 per litre, about a cent and a half higher than a day earlier.
John McFarlane, filling up his large quad-cab pick up truck in Fredericton, said he has to just accept the reality of high gas prices.
"I don't like it, but we live in this country and I guess we just have to tough it out,'' he said. "It's the way the world is going... They're going to have to come out with vehicles that aren't so hard on fuel.''
The $100 a barrel figure may be staggering for drivers worried about how much it will cost to top up their gas tanks. But there's no real reason to panic, said William Lacey, an oil and gas analyst with First Energy Capital.
There is a link between the price of crude and pump prices, Lacey said. But the strong Canadian dollar, which has climbed alongside crude prices, has been taking some of the edge off.
"The real impact has been somewhat mitigated because of the rise in the currency,'' he said, adding he thinks Canadian consumers will be able to manage any increase.
"Every time we hit one of those new levels, as soon as we pull back a bit, people seem to reset in their minds what gas prices are,'' he said.
"There seems to be some sort of a short-term outcry, but long term people seem to adjust reasonably quickly to the changes.''
The price of crude oil only makes up for about 35 to 40 per cent of the cost at the pump, said Joseph Doucet, a University of Alberta economics professor with an energy sector specialization.
"There are lot of reasons that gasoline prices go up and down at any given hour or day, which may or may not be related to global crude prices. They're likely more related to local competitive effects,'' he said.
"It's hard for a consumer filling up today to realize or believe that increase isn't related to the global crude price. But it actually isn't.''
Ted Stoner of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute said refining businesses that turn the raw materials into gasoline, diesel and other fuels have been seeing their costs to up for some time now.
The record-high crude oil price "probably has some influence. But if one were monitoring the wholesale price of the products over the past two or three weeks they've actually been creeping up nonetheless,'' he said
"Eventually (the price of gasoline) was going to catch up and I think it has.''
