Heavy Oil Discount Narrows

The discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude versus the North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) tightened for a second day on Friday:

• WCS for July delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, traded at $12.95 a barrel below WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, having settled at $13.05 a barrel under the benchmark on Thursday.

• Last month’s start-up of the 590,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Trans Mountain pipeline is helping support Canadian crude prices by opening up more access to markets on the U.S. west coast and Asia.

• Global oil prices edged down and posted a third straight weekly loss as investors weighed OPEC+ reassurances against the latest U.S. jobs data that lowered expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon.

(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Richard Chang)