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The discount on Western Canada Select crude oil to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures widened on Thursday. WCS for May delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $15.55 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, compared with $14.90 on Wednesday. * The WCS differential has been volatile since the start of the U.S. war on Iran. Early on, disruptions in global supplies of heavy crude led to a narrowing in the discount. * But Wood Mackenzie [Read more]

President Donald Trump said on Thursday Iran should not charge fees to tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blockaded since the start of the Iran war, causing the worst disruption to global energy supplies in history. "There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now." Media ​reports have suggested Iran might want to charge a toll for [Read more]

The Trump administration said on Thursday that it was offering to loan up to 30 million barrels of crude oil from the West Hackberry Strategic Petroleum Reserve site, marking the third solicitation of proposals from oil companies since fuel prices spiked due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Companies can submit proposals to exchange oil from the SPR until 11 a.m. Central Time (1600 GMT) on April 13, according to a document posted to the Energy Department's website. The United States is [Read more]

Attacks on Saudi energy facilities have cut the kingdom's oil production capacity by around 600,000 barrels per day and the throughput on its East-West pipeline by about 700,000 bpd, Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Thursday, citing an official source at the energy ministry. The attacks, including previous strikes on some facilities, also disrupted operations at key oil, gas, refining, petrochemical and electricity sites in Riyadh, the Eastern Province and Yanbu Industrial City, SPA [Read more]

Energy companies evaluating whether to invest in Venezuela are waiting for the OPEC nation's oil ministry to release contract models that will provide specific terms to continue, expand or start businesses there, two sources close to the matter said. Following the approval in January of a sweeping reform of Venezuela's main oil law that gave autonomy to partners of state company PDVSA to operate and sell their output, the ministry told executives it would soon issue new models for sharing [Read more]

U.S. Gulf Coast refiners are reaping the strongest margins in years as disruptions to Middle Eastern oil flows from the Iran war raise demand for U.S. fuel exports, analysts and experts said. Asian and European refiners have been hit hard by a slump in Middle Eastern crude exports due to Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, forcing some to cut production. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, conditional on reopening the Strait of [Read more]

Iran will move the management of the strategic Strait of Hormuz into a new phase, its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday in a statement read out on state TV. "Iran is not seeking war but will not forfeit its rights and considers all resistance fronts as a unified entity," Khamenei added. (Reporting by Enas Alasharay and Yomna Ehab, Editing by William Maclean) [Read more]

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned ships to keep to a route passing through its territorial waters when crossing the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz as traffic on Thursday remained well below 10% of normal volumes. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, one of Japan’s big three shipping firms, is among those caught up in the confusion as firms try to work out what impact the U.S.-Irantwo-week ceasefire is having. "It must be confirmed that the safety risks are sufficiently low," President and [Read more]