The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) widened on Thursday:
* WCS for August delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $13.65 a barrel below WTI on Thursday, according to brokerage CalRock, widening by 15 cents a barrel on the day below WTI.
* Refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, which process Canadian crude, had limited damage and largely returned to normal operations on Wednesday following Hurricane Beryl. Offshore platforms in the area, which produce some medium crudes that are also used by refineries in Gulf Coast, saw limited damage as well.
* The District of Wells in the Canadian province of British Columbia issued an evacuation order for some areas due to wildfires late on Wednesday, the local authority said in a statement.
* Last week, Suncor, Canada’s second-largest oil company, temporarily curtailed some production and evacuated non-essential workers from its 215,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Firebag site because of a fire roughly eight kilometres (5 miles) away.
* In Ontario, Suncor shut down a unit at its 85,000 barrels-per-day Sarnia refinery for maintenance on Tuesday.
* Global oil prices settled slightly higher on Thursday, the second consecutive session, as hopes rose for U.S. interest rate cuts after data showed an unexpected slowdown in inflation.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)