Pumps run dry at some Calgary Petro-Canada stations due to Suncor refinery maintenance

Maintenance at Edmonton's Suncor refinery has led to a shortage of gas for Petro-Canada stations around Alberta.

There's no word on how long the maintenance, or fuel shortage, will last, but the crunch has some Calgary drivers worried that competing stations will hike up their prices.

Calgary taxi driver Jasvir Dhillonsaid he noticed the Kensington Petro-Canadahad begun to run out of regular and mid-grade fuel last Friday, and by Thursday the pump's were completely dry.

"When the price goes up, we lose the money The driver suffers when the price goes up," Dhillon said.

However, Dhillon doesn't necessarily need to be concerned, according to Michael Ervin of petroleum consulting company Kent Group.

No price increases in Calgary yet

"I've seen circumstances in the past where these unforeseen shortages in supply haveoccurred where we haven't seen any significant rise in the retail or wholesale pump price and that may be the case here certainly at this point we haven't seen any significant increases in Calgary so far," Ervinsaid.

"It really is uncertain and it really comes down to just how quickly or to what degree Suncor is having to look for alternate supplies."

Ervin said in cases like this, that additional supply would usually come from neighbouring refineries in Edmonton or one in Saskatchewan. But beyond that, it can take longer to make arrangements on short notice to obtain supply from refineries in Eastern Canada or the Midwestern U.S.

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He said a price hike becomes more likely if the drought is prolonged, but said during the summer, prices tend to be pretty stable.

Pumps at Petro-Canadastations last ran out of gas across Western Canada in 2016, after an unplanned outage at the same Edmonton Suncorrefinery. This time there's as of yet no indication that the outage will impact Manitoba and Saskatchewan pumps as well.

Ervin said consumers needn't worry about a complete outage of gas at Calgary pumps.

"In the 25 years of observing this industry what I have never seen is a situation where consumers think they can't find gasoline somewhere."