Heavy crude discount narrows on rising demand

The Canadian heavy oil differential narrowed against the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark on Wednesday:

* Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy blend crude for March delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, was trading at $10.25 a barrel below WTI crude futures , narrower than Tuesday's settle at $10.90 below WTI, according to Net Energy Exchange.

* A Calgary industry source said increased demand for Canadian heavy crude, due to U.S. sanctions against Venezuela's state oil company, has kept the differential narrow, despite a fire at the Wood River, Illinois refinery, an outage in part of the Keystone oil pipeline and the Alberta government easing production cuts.

* A shutdown of a portion of TransCanada Corp's Keystone oil pipeline will last a further "days not weeks," following a leak in Missouri last week.

* A small operational issue at Imperial Oil's Strathcona, Alberta refinery has been resolved.

* Canadian oil producer Cenovus Energy said it is sticking to its plans to accelerate rail shipments in the second quarter.

* Light synthetic crude from the oil sands for March delivery traded at 10 cents per barrel over WTI, unchanged from Tuesday's settle.

* Global oil prices climbed after top exporter Saudi Arabia said it would cut crude exports and deliver an even deeper cut to its production.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba Editing by Marguerita Choy)