As of Friday afternoon, the ESSO in 108 Mile Ranch has run out of regular gas, marked gas and diesel.
The attendant, who said the station was already out when he arrived for his shift, was unaware of any coming shipments and is not yet aware of what they’ll be doing to combat the shortage.
The fuel shortage spreading across the B.C Interior briefly affected 100 Mile House on Wednesday as well.
Atique Rehman, owner of the Chevron in town, said they ran out of regular fuel yesterday and were selling premium at the price of regular.
The shortage was short-lived, according to Rehman, as another shipment of regular gas came in today.
Karim Sidhu, supervisor of the Super Save gas station, said he is unconcerned about the buzz about shortages. They received a shipment two days ago and he said so far they are good on every type of fuel.
A Chevron station in Prince Rupert didn’t get its delivery on Wednesday evening, so it was selling Supreme Plus gas at regular prices – 130.9 cents a litre. The attendant said they ran out of fuel the day before. A nearby 7-Eleven was also out of regular gas.
A Petro-Canada station in Quesnel hung up signs notifying customers they were temporally out of fuel on Monday through until late Tuesday evening. The owner said he had diesel only for most of Tuesday.
A Chevron station in Smithers was also out of regular fuel on Monday night.
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Dan McTeague, the senior petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy.com, said is linked to longer than expected maintenance at a Suncor refinery in Edmonton. Suncor operates Petro-Canada, making up 25 per cent of all oil refined in Western Canada.
“Much of the gas in [the] region is sent from there to the Petro-Canada terminal in Kamloops,” McTeague said.
“At last report, the company was trying to source fuel from the U.S.”
Said Suncor spokesperson Nicole Fisher in an email: “We understand that this is an inconvenience for our customers and weapologize. We are doing everything we can to minimize the impact, including sourcing additional supply.”
Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island gas stations won’t be affected, McTeague said, as that fuel come from the Parkland refinery in Burnaby as well as one in Washington State.
McTeague says the temporary pump closures could last into mid-June.
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In the meantime, McTeague says drivers can expect rotating gas shortages as the fuel is spread evenly to local stations, but prices should not be drastically affected.
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