The discount on Western Canada Select to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures narrowed on Tuesday.
WCS for October delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $11.20 a barrel under the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, compared with $11.40 a barrel discount on Monday.
* Tuesday’s close was the narrowest discount for WCS since late July. Discounts widened in August due in part to the shutdown of BP’s 440,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which had been affected by flooding after a severe thunderstorm. The refinery is often the single largest purchaser of Canadian crude.
* Still, WCS discounts are not expected to be as narrow in the second half of the year as they were this spring. Western Canadian crude production continues to grow, with the oil-producing province of Alberta hitting a new record of 4.3 million barrels per day in July. Increased output will drive increased utilization of the country’s export pipelines, said Enverus analyst Michael Berger, adding the market will be looking to third-quarter earnings calls for 2026 production guidance from major oil sands companies.
* Global oil prices settled higher on Tuesday after the Israeli military said it carried out an attack on Hamas leadership in Qatari capital Doha, an expansion of its years-long military campaign across the Middle East.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Richard Chang)