It's been a good summer for motorists in Cochrane who are currently paying up to 15 cents less per litre of gasoline than this time last year.

On Monday, July 25, gasoline prices throughout Cochrane averaged at 90.9c/L, a reflection that oil refineries are meeting a huge demand without any difficulties.

Although Canada has no reliable or up-to-date information on petroleum inventories, American data confirms inventories are at their highest levels for this time of year in over 5 years.

Dan McTeague, Senior Petroleum Analyst for GasBuddy Canada, said this low end cost is the price we should expect for the foreseeable future.

"I think this is where they're going to stay as far as prices are concerned. I don't see them going up unless U.S. refineries across the Midwest run into some trouble. We're coming into the middle of summer, refineries are able to adequately supply the market and as a result, prices are lower than we've seen in a long time."

McTeague explained, while the low gas prices are good news for consumers, he is fed up with massive losses to the Canadian economy because of a lack of pipelines across the country.

"Unfortunately for Canada, because we don't have pipelines going East or West to markets, we're experiencing about a $14.75 a barrel discount as a result of our inability to get our oil to market."

McTeague believes it really emphasizes the need for the Federal Government to act more diligently in ensuring that we get fair market for our oil, and approve east and west pipelines.

He said after he did the math, on Friday, July 22 alone, the Canadian Economy could have lost almost $30 million due to a lack of pipelines.

"I'm getting a little tired of this business of them holding off. On a day like Friday, the West Texas Intermediate, which is the benchmark price for North America, is settled at $44.31/barrel and Canadian oil is selling for $29.56/barrel. It's totally unfair, we can produce 2.5 million barrels of that a day but we're losing $14.75 x 2 million barrels; that's a loss of $29.5 million a day to the Canadian economy."