Pandemonium at the pumps

Devinder Singh isn’t accustomed to breaking up fights at his gas pumps, but that’s just what he did yesterday. The manager of Petrostar, on King Street West, had to calm two customers who appeared to be on the verge of getting physical after one of them jumped the queue to the pumps. "I calmed them down and told them to take it easy," said Singh as a steady stream of customers stepped up to his cash register. "I said, ‘Cool down. You’ll get the old price anyway.’"

No wonder the two men were tense. The Petrostar gas station was one of several across the city where people lined up for as long as 30 minutes to fill their cars amid rumours that damage caused by hurricane Rita would lead to jacked up prices as high as $2 a litre. In some places, prices did rise. For instance, one gas station in Hamilton, Ont., raised the price to $2.15 a litre, and in nearby Grimsby the price rose to $2.02 a litre. Rumours abounded yesterday that fuel prices would rise sky high as oil refineries in the United States closed – battening down their hatches against the monstrous storm headed ashore.

The 18 oil refineries around the Gulf of Mexico account for almost one-quarter of the refining capacity in the U.S. Queen’s University economics professor John McHale said that even if those oil refineries aren’t damaged, prices at the pump will probably jump for a few days. "We could get a substantial spike," McHale said yesterday. "Much of the refining capacity is still out after Katrina; now additional refining capacity is being shut down." The spike will be short-lived if the refineries aren’t seriously damaged by the storm.

Although Canada has a fair number of its own refineries, it will be affected by increased prices in the U.S. "Even though Canada doesn’t really depend on the U.S. for its gasoline, it can certainly export Canadian gas to the U.S. and, if it can get a higher price in the U.S., it’s going to charge the higher price also to its Canadian customers," McHale said. All around Kingston yesterday, panicked drivers blocked lanes, crowded intersections and slowed traffic on many roads as they waited their turn to fill up. At midday, Singh was still selling some of the cheapest gas in the city for $1.03.9 per litre. He said he wouldn’t raise the price until he sold all the gas he had bought at lower prices. "As soon as whatever we bought at the old prices finishes, that’s when we raise the price," he said as he handed change to a customer. Around the corner on MacDonald Avenue, footcare nurse Lisa Butler-Patterson sat in her idling six-cylinder Grand Am. The lineup in front of her blocked driveways along the small side street, frustrating residents who were trying to park on their properties. If gas goes up to $2 a litre, she said it will cost her more than $60 to fill her tank, up from about $33 before Katrina struck.

Gas prices leapt by as much as 25 cents a litre at some city gas stations after Katrina. Butler-Patterson said she used to think nothing of driving off to Inverary to deal with a client, but as the cost of gas rises, she’s trying harder to lump trips to clients in the same areas together to save gas money. She feels she’s in a catch-22. She can’t charge her customers more or they’ll go elsewhere. At the same time, she’s having difficulty being available when people need her. "Some of my clients are going to have to wait or they’re going to call someone else," she said.

Wilfred Beaulieu, who was sat in line in his GMC pickup truck for several minutes to buy gas at $1.03.9 at Rosen Fuels on Cataraqui Street, said his business, Kingston Steeplejacks, is also feeling the pinch. If gas goes up to $2 a litre, the price of filling his tank will go from around $60 to about $100. "Profit is going down, taxes are going up, hydro and gas are going up, so we’re not getting ahead," Beaulieu said as his tank was filled. About a dozen other cars lined up along Cataraqui Street behind him. One of those belonged to Shireen Stroud, who drove a Nissan Murano. Ever since Katrina hit, she’s been filling up her car in $20 increments because it’s so expensive to fill it all the way. Her family lives in the country and needs its vehicles, so Stroud doesn’t know how she can save money if gas prices skyrocket again. "It’s a pain and an added expense, but I don’t know what my choices are." Retiree Meryl Harper, who drives a six-cylinder Chevrolet Impala, said he’s already changed his lifestyle to deal with the effects of the higher cost of gas on his fixed income. "Now I walk to the store and to the bank a mile-and-a-half away and I don’t take those long country drives that I used to on Sundays," Harper said.

A drive around Kingston yesterday revealed that gas prices appeared fairly level at stations for most of the day. A midday survey found prices ranging from $1.03.9 at stations such as Petrostar and Rosen Fuels to $1.14.9 at the Olco gas station on Counter Street. Mid-evening prices hadn’t changed. There was no lineup at that station around midday. But at the nearby Ultramar, more than 20 cars queued along the shoulder of Counter Street to take advantage of $1.03.9-per-litre prices. Stations at gasoline alley on Division Street, near Highway 401, which were selling at around $1.04.7 per litre, were busy, but had no lineups. According to Ontariogasprices.com, which maintains a real-time list of stations and their current gas prices as submitted by users of the site, pump prices stayed fairly level across the province for most of yesterday.

The Whig-Standard received a number of reports about area gas stations raising prices, but calls to the stations revealed the information was incorrect. McHale said people may notice some wild variations in pump prices and he urged them to shop around and compare. Normally, consumers have a good idea of what the price of gas should be and this prevents gas station owners from increasing prices, but practices change during fuel crises. "They [gas stations] know they can’t deviate too much from the going market price, but when you have a severe disruption like this, people lose the sense of what gas should cost," McHale said. "They’re more willing to pay the high prices because they assume the price will be high elsewhere."

farmstrong@thewhig.com

– With files from Whig-Standard news services