The discount of Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude to the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures (WTI) narrowed on Thursday, the same day President Donald Trump suspended the 25% tariffs he imposed this week on most goods from Canada and Mexico.
* WCS for April delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $12.70 a barrel under WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, after having settled at $13.60 under the U.S. benchmark on Tuesday.
* Trump’s latest reprieve on tariffs expires on April 2 when Trump has threatened to impose a global regime of reciprocal tariffs on all U.S. trading partners. The amended order does not fully cover energy products, on which Trump has imposed a separate 10% levy. A White House official said that is because not all energy products imported from Canada are covered under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade that Trump negotiated in his first term as president.
* Trump on Tuesday applied 25% tariffs to most Canadian goods and 10% to energy products.
* The Canadian heavy crude market had a “knee-jerk reaction” to the tariffs immediately following their implementation, said RBN Energy analyst Martin King.
* Canada exports approximately 4 million barrels of oil per day, about 90% of its total crude exports, to the United States.
* Globally, oil settled largely unchanged in choppy trade on Thursday, with global benchmark Brent closing below $70 a barrel under pressure from tariffs between the U.S., Canada, and China, and plans by OPEC+ to raise output.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Mohammed Safi Shamsi)