Every litre at the pump is crude oil, plus the refining margin, plus distribution and marketing, plus tax. Crude is usually the biggest single piece. Taxes are the most predictable piece, because they are set by law rather than by the market.
A short horizon pump forecast works because retail lags wholesale by roughly one to two weeks. We fit an error correction model: how fast does the pump close the gap to where wholesale says it should be, and how much of this week and last week's wholesale move passes through.
Pumps tend to rise faster than they fall, the so called rockets and feathers effect. We fit a separate pass through for wholesale increases and decreases to measure it.
We map a change in the Brent crude price through the fitted crude to wholesale to retail chain. This is a what if, not a crude forecast, since no one can reliably predict oil.
The pump line trails the wholesale line. That gap, and how quickly it closes, is the whole basis of the short term forecast.
The simple verdict and the deep dive share one engine. We take the recent weekly pump series for your city, the matching wholesale series, and the Brent crude series. We compute a long run baseline gap retail minus wholesale that captures the usual margin and tax load. Each week the pump moves by part of this week's wholesale change, part of last week's, and a correction back toward the baseline gap. We estimate those weights by ordinary least squares, then push one week forward using a wholesale input implied by recent futures movement. The three day verdict is the near part of that weekly path, shown with a band of one standard error of the model's past misses. Taxes are added as known constants, not extrapolated, which is why a tax change like the September 7 excise return is handled as a fixed step rather than a guess. For your real site, replace the seed data with the fuel.json your PHP cron writes, and the same code runs on live numbers.
We collect minimal information. Your selected city is stored in your own browser for convenience and is not transmitted to us. We do not sell personal data. Aggregate, non identifying usage statistics may be collected to operate and improve the site. If you contact us, we use your message and email only to respond.
This site uses only essential local storage to remember your default city and display preferences. We do not require advertising or tracking cookies for the core experience. Any third party measurement, if enabled, is described here and can be declined without losing core functionality.
The information provided is for general reference and is offered without warranty of accuracy, completeness or fitness for a particular purpose, to the extent permitted by applicable Canadian law. Prices and forecasts can be wrong and should not be the sole basis for any decision. LiveFuelPrice is not liable for any loss arising from use of this site.
We aim to meet recognized accessibility guidelines, including readable contrast, keyboard navigable controls and descriptive labels. If you encounter a barrier using this site, please contact us and we will work to address it promptly.
By using this site you agree to use it lawfully and for personal, non commercial reference. Data is provided as is. Forecasts are statistical estimates, not guarantees, and nothing here constitutes financial or investment advice. We may update content, methodology or these terms at any time.