The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) widened on Tuesday:
* WCS for August delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $13.95 a barrel below WTI on Monday, according to brokerage CalRock.
* “After what appears to have been a production curtailment in the range of 200 Mb/d for about eight days due to wildfires, Alberta’s oil sands output has likely fully recovered suggesting that the threat to production sites in the oil sands region from the fires has eased,” RBN energy analyst Martin King wrote.
* However, another production curtailment could take place at any time as numerous wildfires remain out of control in the oil sands region with hot dry weather persisting across parts of northeastern Alberta, King added.
* Suncor Energy had shut down its 215,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Firebag oil sands site in northern Alberta and curtailed some production in earlu July as a precaution due to a wildfire about eight kilometres (5 miles) away, according to the company and an Alberta government minister.
* Global oil prices settled more than 1% lower on Tuesday, the third straight day of losses, on worries of a slowing Chinese economy crimping demand, though declines were stemmed by a growing consensus the U.S. Federal Reserve could begin cutting its key interest rate as soon as September.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Mohammed Safi Shamsi)