The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) narrowed slightly on Tuesday:
• WCS for June delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $12.50 a barrel below WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, having settled at $12.75 a barrel below the benchmark on Monday.
• Around 6,000 people in four suburbs of the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire approached the remote northern Alberta city.
• There were no reports of interruptions to oil sands operations but market participants are concerned, one broker said. In 2016, a wildfire destroyed large parts of Fort McMurray and forced more than a million barrels per day (bpd) of production to shut in.
• Canadian heavy crude is also gaining support from the start-up of the 590,000 bpd Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), although the first oil tanker is not expected to load at Westridge dock in the Port of Vancouver until the second half of May.
• Global oil prices settled lower, after U.S. data stoked concerns that interest rates may stay high, but potential risks to supply from Middle East tensions and the wildfires in Canada put a floor under prices.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Himani Sarkar)