The discount on Western Canada Select crude oil to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures narrowed on Thursday. WCS for September delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $14.70 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, compared to $14.80 on Wednesday. * The discount remains significantly wider than it was in June, after traffic through the Strait of Hormuz picked up in July and also due to the ongoing weakness in China's import appetite, [Read more]

U.S. imports of Middle Eastern crude are set to hit about 600,000 barrels per day in August, the highest since the Iran war began, as a brief opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the rerouting of Saudi oil through the Suez Canal pushed barrels toward American ports, ship-tracking data showed. Nearly a dozen ships loaded with Middle Eastern crude were headed to U.S. ports as American refiners and traders moved swiftly to snap up barrels that exited the strait when a memorandum of understanding [Read more]

Iran has made a concerted diplomatic push with Gulf states, warning them explicitly that Tehran will hit their oil, power and water plants unless they convince Donald Trump to end U.S. strikes on Iran and instead seek a negotiated end to the war. The warning envisaged attacks on the energy facilities, oil fields, refineries, electricity grids, water infrastructure, transport networks and other strategic assets of Washington's closest Arab allies, according to a senior Iranian official. The [Read more]

A proposed deal between Iran and Oman that would give Tehran control over ships entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is not easily workable due to U.S. sanctions and restrictive insurance clauses on any payments, four industry sources said. Until U.S.-Israeli airstrikes at the end of February unleashed war in Iran, the narrow waterway between the Gulf and the Indian Ocean was the main route for about a fifth of world oil supplies and other vital goods. It was freely open to all ships [Read more]