The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) to the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures held steady on Tuesday.
WCS for July delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $8.80 a barrel under the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, flat to Monday’s trade.
* WCS discounts have been tight in recent days, partly due to the wildfire situation in Western Canada.
* Last week, wildfires burning in Canada’s oil-producing province of Alberta prompted several oil sands operations to evacuate workers as a precaution. About 344,000 barrels per day of production, or about 7% of Canada’s average daily crude production, was disrupted as a result.
* Cenovus Energy is in the process of ramping up production at its Christina Lake oil sands site in Alberta after shutting output due to wildfire risk in early June, its CEO confirmed on Tuesday. Canada’s largest crude producer, Canadian Natural Resources, restarted operations at its Jackfish 1 site.
* Canadian crude oil shipping market has been a bit quiet as cargo activity for August has been less active with wildfires and closed arbitrage, according to an Oil Brokerage note.
* Global oil prices hit multi-week highs on Monday, buoyed by a weaker U.S. dollar, while investors awaited news from U.S.-China trade talks in London in hopes that a deal could boost global economic outlook and subsequently fuel demand.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Alan Barona)