The price of gas has been the talk of the town around Alberta communities since the New Year.

Prices have jumped nearly 10 cents per litre in just one week.

Dan McTeague Senior Petroleum Analyst with Gas Buddy dot com says there were two reasons behind the jump at the pumps.

"We've seen a huge increase because of gasoline prices South of the border in the U.S. That's what first put us up over $1.00/L back a week and a half or so ago. The latest round though, that saw us go from $1.08/L to $1.14/L, had everything to do with the Provincial Government Carbon Tax. Which raised prices on average 4.7 cents/L for every gas station."

McTeague says there's no sign of those prices dropping back to the 80 or 90 cent mark that we saw last year any time soon.


"Bare in mind that we always price our fuel in U.S dollars. So a weak Canadian dollar, which is expected to get weaker this year, could in fact lead to higher prices. Keeping us at the $1.10/L average looking into the first half of 2017."

As for the second half of the year, McTeague believes the price of gas will be higher than what we've seen over the past two years.

With prices between the $1.10/L and $1.20/L mark that we saw in 2013 and 2014.

McTeague says with both the PC's and NDP raising taxes over the last 3 years by a total of 9 cents/L, Alberta no longer has the cheapest gas prices in the Country.

"That new title now belongs to Manitoba, followed then by Saskatchewan. So for the next year not only will gasoline prices go up, diesel has also gone up as well, and that too will have an impact on the wider economy. I think looking forward into 2017, it'll be a far more expensive year than we've seen in some time."