Gas guru questions price ‘hysteria’
CBC News
Posted: Feb 23, 2012 3:30 PM ET
Last Updated: Feb 23, 2012 7:08 PM ET
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Gas prices are predicted to soar this spring and summer, but one gas-price watcher believes the "hysteria" is premature.
Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who runs the website Tomorrow's Gas Price Today, spoke to CBC's Metro Morning Thursday, suggesting drivers try and disregard some pessimistic predictions made recently.
Currently gas in Toronto sells for about $1.29 a litre but many experts, including petroleum analyst Roger McKnight, are predicting the price of crude will increase dramatically by the summer.
"What I am predicting for the end of April is that prices across the country will be up 15 per cent," McKnight said.
According to many experts, gas prices are being driven up by rising tensions between the United States and Iran.
However, Dan McTeague said unless there is military conflict in Iran he doesn't see the price of gas increasing radically.
"I think it's unlikely these prices will be sustained. To pick a number out of thin air and say 'it's going to be $1.47 by the end of April' I think, in my view, is very irresponsible," McTeague said.
"And those who make those suggestions better be right, because they have the effect, I think, of creating an unnecessary hysteria."
McTeague points to 2008 when gas prices went up sharply in Toronto only to drop again in four months.
"So there is a lot of people saying this is the making of an economic super bubble — an energy super bubble — and it will burst and have enormous implications for the middle class, but more importantly it's not sustainable."
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