Cheap gas in St. Catharines

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The prolonged gas price war in St. Catharines continues and the price to fill up your tank these days is well below the rest of the province. As of tonight, you can fill up at several stations in St. Kitts for around 64 cents a litre. That’s so cheap, stations are losing money on each tank.

With both the Pioneer and Esso stations on Ontario street offering the lowest price in the province, consumers are willing to wait, ten, twenty, sometimes thirty minute for the privilege. The price there is some 20 cents below the provincial average and this has been going on, in some form for several months.

The last time that gas hit the low 60 cents was in the financial crisis back in 2009 but that last time that the average price of gas remained below 65 cents for an entire year 1999.

According to Dan McTeague of gasbuddy.com, the price you pay at Esso or Pioneer on Ontario street is much lower than the wholesale price for a litre of gas which is 80.6 cents per litre. “In other words Esso is selling gasoline for as much as 16.3 cents a litre below wholesale cost.”

McTeague says that this is part of a long slow strategy to push independent gas stations out of the market, making for less competition. “Folks may love this stuff but they’re going to paying for it in the long run and that payment is long term and it is permanent. Once the independent is crushed, they can’t get back into business.”

He says that it happened in the Toronto area previously which is why the price remains higher. “It sounds like short term gain for motorists, but in the end it’s long term pain.”