Motorists in Colorado should get ready to pay more at the pump after Suncor Energy announced this week it would shut down its Commerce City oil refinery for as long as three months due to equipment being damaged at the sprawling facility by last week’s “extreme and record-setting weather.”

Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association and the Colorado Convenience Store Association, said “prices will be abnormally high in the next six to eight weeks” in Colorado as the 35% to 40% of the state’s gas and diesel market that is supplied by Suncor goes suddenly dry.

“It’s not a cause for panic but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more of those yellow bags on gas pumps,” Bailey said. “This is a big supply disruption for a large percentage of the market.”

Motorists, he said, will start to see the impacts of the shutdown at Colorado gas stations “within a week,” though most of the price effects will be felt closer to the Front Range. He did not project how much of an increase per gallon motorists may see.

Read more at DenverPost.com.