Gas to drop while heating and stove oils increase
Markets eye Northern Iraq

Media release

St. John’s, NL, December 18, 2007- Consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador will see a slight drop in gasoline prices this coming Thursday ahead of the long drive home, that’s from George Murphy of the Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices.

“With thirteen days out of a possible fourteen days of data on hand, there’s enough there to call the shot on how pricing will look this coming Thursday. It looks like gas prices will drop by 1.3 cents a litre while heating and stove oils will likely increase by somewhere close to one cent a litre,” said Murphy.

“Inventories of heating oil remain a concern while we are into the January and February buying contracts. We still have not seen substantial increases in inventories even though refiner capacity has picked up slightly. Cold and stormy weather across North America has also impacted demand numbers.

“The situation in Northern Iraq is playing heavily into the markets today as Turkish forces have invaded some parts of Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels. There is a fear in the markets that oil exports from Northern Iraq will face possible disruptions and that has played into the markets significantly. We may see slightly larger increase in heating and stove oils and a lessening of the gasoline numbers as a result. Before the news today, we were relatively stable price wise.”

The Public utilities Board will set prices for fuels this coming Thursday morning.


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For more information, contact;

George Murphy
Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices
gasprices@hotmail.com