CALGARY - If you're waiting for gasoline prices to be pulled down by the global price of crude oil, don't hold your breath.
An upward swing in crude oil -- the raw product from which gasoline in made -- normally translates into higher pump prices within a day or two, said Dustin Coupal, co-founder of GasBuddy.com, a website that tracks gas prices throughout North America.
But frustratingly, it could take five to seven days for a downward move in crude to register, he said.
"When the crude oil price drops, stations typically have remaining fuel on hand that they've already paid a higher price for and they're not willing to sell it essentially at a loss," Coupal said.
Stations wait until their tanks are empty until they can buy the wholesale product at a lower cost, at which point they are able to pass the savings along to customers.
When crude oil prices go up, on the other hand, retailers are willing to charge more right away because they know their overhead costs are about to increase.
"Everyone's been put in a tough place with the high crude oil prices," Coupal said.
That includes refiners, which buy crude oil and process into products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Their profit margins have been squeezed by rising costs on one side and on the other by competitive pressures.
In the United States, Chevron Corp. has even projected a second-quarter loss of about $250 million at its so-called "downstream" operations which includes refining, even though its production or "upstream" operations are expected to report a big profit.
Even though it may be hard for consumers to believe, gas prices have not risen nearly as quickly as crude oil prices have over the past few months, said Edward Jones energy analyst Lanny Pendill.
"Because of that, as oil comes down, prices at the pump tend to be a little bit stickier on the way down, because they didn't capture all of the incremental costs," he said.
"If they don't recover all of that when oil's going up, they need to try to recoup more of that when oil comes back down."
Crude oil started off the week above US$145 a barrel, but settled at $129.29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Over the course of three days it dropped more than $15.
Gasoline prices in Canada were all over the map Thursday. The national average was C$1.39 per litre -- virtually the same as a week ago, according to GasBuddy.com.
In some competitive markets, prices were down.
In Toronto, gas prices fell from $1.31 to $1.29 between Wednesday and Thursday. Montreal saw their pump prices go from $1.47 to $1.44 over the same period.
But in Vancouver, gas jumped more than a cent to $1.49. In Newfoundland, the province that sees some of the highest prices, gas jumped two cents to just under $1.50 a litre.
