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Gasoline prices in the province could continue to drop throughout the fall season.

An expert with GasBuddy believes that could fall another $0.05 to $0.15 per litre in the next few months.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, said there is a bit of volatility in gas prices currently that could increase or decrease prices in the short term.

"There are some tensions in the Middle East and crude oil prices had touched about $73 per barrel earlier this week but are now down to $70 a barrel," he said "I would expect as we get into October, November, and December prices would modestly trend lower."

Saskatchewan's average gas price has fallen $0.12 per litre this past month, which De Haan credits the switch from summer to winter gasoline as one of the biggest contributors. 

"Winter gasoline has more butane, it's pretty plentiful and cheap compared to alkylate that comes out of summer gasoline," he said. "Alkylate is generally more expensive. It's less evaporative and burns cleaner. Butane is the opposite; it's a little bit more volatile. The BTU count of winter gas is a little bit lower, so if you notice a slight hit to your fuel mileage it's not just you."

One of the largest refineries in the United States mid-west, which supplies a portion of the prairies, is offline currently as it's undergoing 45 days of maintenance. De Haan doesn't expect it will influence prices a ton but pointed to the prices at the pumps this time last year in Saskatchewan when it averaged $1.64 per litre due to similar circumstances.

"A lot of what was happening last year right now was refinery maintenance and outages we really impacting gas prices," he said. "This year with a lack of some of those refinery issues, prices have gone a bit lower."

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