The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) narrowed on Wednesday:
* WCS for August delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $13.50 a barrel below WTI on Wednesday, according to brokerage CalRock, narrowing by 10 cents a barrel on the day below WTI.
* Refineries and offshore production sites on the U.S. Gulf Coast had limited damage and largely returned to normal operations on Wednesday following Hurricane Beryl, with some of those Gulf Coast refineries consuming WCS.
* Alberta’s wildfire agency said that as of Tuesday afternoon, there were 34 wildfires burning in the High Level forest area with 10 of them out of control, while one that was classified as out of control in Fort McMurray forest area, about eight kilometres (five miles) northeast of industrial facilities.
* 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 higher on Wednesday after a jump in U.S. refining activity last week drove a larger-than-expected decline in gasoline and crude inventories, but gains were capped due to minimal supply disruptions from Hurricane Beryl.
(Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)