An Ontario-based gas price watcher is predicting an increase of approximately 5 cents a litre when the PUB sets its regulated gas prices tomorrow.

Dan McTeague says according to his numbers, gas could increase by 5.2 cents a litre while diesel could go up by 5.35. Home heating fuels could got up by about 4 cents a litre.

That will result in gas prices of between $1.68 and $1.70 a litre on most parts of the Avalon Peninsula according to McTeague. The all-time record high of $1.63 was set last fall.

The Wall Street Journal is predicting that oil will fetch up to $100 dollars a barrel by the summer and McTeague says it’s not far off that price right now.

He says oil rose to between $85 US and $88 US dollars a barrel this week with Brent crude touching $90 US dollars a barrel this week.

Larry Short, Senior Investment Advisor with Short Financial a branch of IA Private Wealth in St. John’s says demand continues to outpace production, placing upward pressure on prices.

He says most oil companies throughout the world can no longer get financing to drill new fields. That, says Short, is the result of financial institutions getting pressure from shareholders not to provide loans to oil companies as part of the shift away from carbon-based energy sources.

Short says while the pressure is there to move away from oil, the pace of change has not kept up with demand for energy.

He says the world has to shift to sources like wind, hydro, solar and even nuclear energy, but the shift as to be “almost immediate.”