The discount on Western Canada Select crude oil to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures narrowed for a second day on Thursday, continuing its retreat from troughs reached earlier in the week but remaining at a historically wide spread.
WCS for December delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $27.50 a barrel below the US benchmark WTI, compared with $28.75 on Wednesday, according to brokerage CalRock. The discount remains nearly double what it was in September and at its widest since 2022. Earlier in the week, it touched levels not seen since 2018.
* Steep discounts on Canadian heavy crude have historically been a result of a lack of pipeline capacity out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.
* This time, the widening is being driven in part by surging freight rates globally caused by ongoing disruptions in the Middle East, as well as refinery maintenance in the US.
* Brent crude futures settled over $3 a barrel higher on Thursday as new attacks on tankers fed worries about oil supplies while investors reassessed the outlook for the US-Israeli war with Iran.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Perla Velasco)