The price of gasoline is expected to increase for the first time in more than two months when the provincial regulator resets the price at midnight tonight.

News 95.7 is predicting the price will increase by around two cents a litre, raising the price of regular self-serve from $1.181 to $1.201 overnight.

“The good news here I guess, is that our forecast increase is not a lot,” said George Murphy with Consumers for Fair Gas Prices. “We’re not at last summer’s prices, at least not yet anyway. We’re still about a nickel below where they were this time last summer.”

The price of gasoline in Nova Scotia reached a near record high (post regulation) in early April when it got to about $1.446, and it has been on a steady decline ever since.

The only time Nova Scotia has not seen a decrease in gas prices since April was over the Victoria Day long weekend when the price stayed the same.

There may be several reasons why the prices are now going up.

“It remains to be seen how long any increases will last, knowing that we’ve seen some sort of temporary resolution to the European financial situation,” Murphy told the Rick Howe Show Wednesday. “That’s the big thing that drove commodities over the last week or so.”

Murphy also points to an increase in the US and Chinese economies as indicators the prices may continue to climb.

“We’ll see people spending which will mean possibly more jobs down the road,” he said. “But we’ll also see higher energy prices, which is an anti-grown ingredient, I like to call it. Higher energy prices means higher prices to consumers.”

In New Brunswick the price of gasoline went up 1.1 cent a litre overnight from $1.197 to $1.208.