The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) narrowed slightly on Monday.
WCS for October delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $18.15 a barrel under WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, having settled at $18.20 under the U.S. benchmark on Friday.
Canadian cash crude prices have dipped since last month on growing concerns that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), which will ship an extra 590,000 barrels per day of oil sands crude to Canada’s Pacific Coast, will be delayed, one trader said.
TMX is meant to be operating by the end of the first quarter of 2024, but could be delayed by up to nine months if regulators do not approve a route deviation request, the Canadian government corporation building the project said on Monday.
The global benchmark oil price settled largely unchanged on Monday, holding above the $90 a barrel reached last week for the first time in 10 months following fresh Saudi and Russian crude output cuts, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled down slightly.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)