After two and half weeks fist pumping at your local gas station when the price for one litre of gasoline was in the mid $.60 range, most retailers have increased their prices but for many it's still a respectable number in these tough economic times.

The price of fuel as of Thursday afternoon is hovering around the mid to high 70 cents range with some spots now at $0.80 a litre.

Senior Petroleum Analyst with GasBuddy.com Dan McTeague says the prices over the long weekend took quite the jump.

"We saw big increases on the US Midwest market, gasoline from $.58-.59 a gallon up to a buck a gallon," he says.  "That eventually spread its way north every from B.C. all the way over to Ontario at around $.13 wholesale price."

McTeague says another reason for the increase in gas prices is the oil refineries not producing enough fuel because there isn't a shortage for fuel.

"That what's primarily behind the increase that we saw the refineries don't like making less than they were making say a few months ago when there was a shortage for gasoline, I think for most Western Canada the picture is not as rosy as we saw a few weeks ago."

McTeague projects that as long as the Canadian dollar continues to improve which it slowly has now trading at $0.73 on the US dollar the price at the pumps won't go too high.

"As long as we don't get these skyrocketing overnight price increases. We should be ok but that's not what's happened here and I think the Canadian dollar over time which really reflects where crude is at will continue to show a little bit of strength and that will at least shield us from some of the small increases in price we're seeing."

The projection for this round of gas prices is expected to last at least till the end of the month.

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