BUDAPEST: Green car enthusiast Matthew Klippenstein pulls his early model plug-in Prius into a Tim Hortons in Maple Ridge, B.C., to take my call.
As gas prices begin to soar again Klippenstein, an engineer who, among other things, writes about the latest developments in battery-powered vehicles for Green Car Reports, tries not to sound smug.
Even before Alberta’s threats to penalize British Columbia for blocking its planned oilsands pipeline expansion to the West Coast, B.C. pump prices were already high. But by the end of last week, a surge in global oil prices had pushed gasoline in the Lower Mainland to $1.50 a litre.
Considering how much money is at stake, it’s surprising how poor the oil and gas industry is at predicting demand and pricing. The success or failure of investments that will take a long time to pay off, such as Canada’s Kinder Morgan pipeline, depend on guessing right.
When oil prices crashed in 2014, one of Canada’s top resource economists foresaw oil prices “snapping back” to $70 US a barrel by 2015. More than three years later, even after last week’s surge, prices still have not hit that level.
