Canadian heavy crude’s discount to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) widened on Tuesday:
Western Canada Select heavy blend crude for November delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $12.60 per barrel below the WTI benchmark, according to NE2 Canada Inc, widening from Monday’s settlement of $12.25 a barrel below the benchmark.
The discount on heavy crude had tightened in recent weeks in anticipation of Enbridge Inc bringing its Line 3 replacement project into service, roughly doubling capacity on the pipeline to 760,000 barrels per day in November.
Linefill on Line 3 started on Friday, and one industry source said heavy differentials were slipping as there seemed to be more demand for light crude in the market.
Light synthetic crude from the oil sands for November delivery settled at 15 cents a barrel below U.S. benchmark crude, narrowing from Monday’s settle of 45 cents a barrel under the benchmark.
Global oil prices jumped, with U.S. crude hitting its highest since 2014 and Brent futures climbing to a three-year high, after the OPEC+ group of producers stuck to its planned output increase rather than raising it further.