Yep, that’s a spike: Charts that help explain Friday’s big jump in gas prices

UPDATE | In this post from Friday morning, I noted the PUB uses interruptions to make adjustments outside of the scheduled weekly setting … and it did. Early on Saturday morning, prices surged another 12.4 cents per litre.

Gas prices in Newfoundland and Labrador are regulated, which doesn’t mean they’re lower than other places (they’re generally not, as there’s a lot of terrain and a relatively small population in the mix) but at least there’s some transparency and oversight … and a cap on what dealers can charge.

Today, the Public Utilities Board raised pump prices by 6.7 cents a litre, bringing the highest price retailers can charge for self-serve in St. John’s, for instance, to $1.541 per litre. You can find cheaper prices, of course, but we can expect retailers to move with the setting.

The jump of course has to do with the war in Iran, particularly the attacks the U.S. and Israel started last weekend. The Friday price setting doesn’t factor in all the commodity market changes of the last week, which have been sharp.

Take a look at how the price of Brent crude has changed in the last six months … and really in the last six days.

Brent is the type of crude used as a benchmark for Newfoundland and Labrador’s oil industry, as it’s comparable to what’s extracted in the North Sea.

WTI, or West Texas Intermediate, is the more popular benchmark in the rest of Canada. CBC published this interactive chart earlier today in this story to illustrate the change.

The spikes of the most recent days will translate into gas prices soon enough.

The next scheduled price setting is next Friday, although the PUB has occasionally used interruptions (particularly in the years when price settings came every two weeks) to reflect volatile changes.