Gas going down to almost the lowest price of the year in Hamilton

Gas prices are set to plunge and heading into the Labour Day holiday they will be the lowest they’ve been since late February.

Prices dropped earlier this week and now the are expected to go even lower — good news for those with weekend road trips.

The average price in Hamilton is expected to drop two cents to 147.9 cents, according to Gas Wizard.

The national average retail price for regular gasoline on Thursday, according to Natural Resources Canada, was 161.1 cents per litre. The last time Canadians saw average gasoline prices in the $1.60 range was during the last week of February, just before the effects of Russia’s Feb. 25 invasion of Ukraine began to be felt at the fuel pumps.

Gasoline prices rose steadily after that, hitting a peak of 215.1 cents per litre in early June. It cost drivers more than $2 a litre, on average, to fill up heading into the Canada Day long weekend, and the August civic holiday wasn’t much better with average prices in the range of 180 cents per litre.

But prices have been declining steadily since August, in part due to the falling price of crude oil and also because of lower U.S. refining margins. On Friday, the October U.S. crude contract was trading at US$86.61 per barrel, its lowest level since late January.

Here are some of the cheapest prices in the area, according to GasBuddy:

Caledonia

River Range Gas Bar (3819 Sixth Line)

142.9

Stoney Creek

Shell (816 Queenston Rd.)

145.7

Hamilton Mountain

Petro-Canada (813 Upper James St.)

147.9

With files from the Canadian Press