Gas prices continue to climb across Saskatchewan, and Estevan isn’t an exception. The average price per litre is $1.199.

Dan McTeague is the senior petroleum analyst for gasbuddy.com. He explained the increases in the price have a number of factors, all of which are outside of the control of retailers.

“We’ve seen wholesale prices for gasoline go up by about five or six cents a litre in the past week or so, slowly but surely,” McTeague shared. He listed off a number of factors which are behind those increases.

“Some of that is related to two Edmonton refineries which are running at lower rates of production, as well as increases on the spot market,” he elaborated. A third factor is the value of the Canadian dollar. McTeague explained the dollar generally moves up with the price of oil, but as of late, it has remained stagnant when compared to the U.S. dollar. This results in less purchasing power on the spot market, which is based on U.S. dollars in Chicago.

With the higher wholesale prices, retailers are buying gas for upwards of $1.179 a litre, putting constraints on an already narrow bottom line.

To offset this, retailers could be looking at having to increase gas prices by an additional six to eight cents a litre just to move above the cost.