The wide discounts to which Canadian oil benchmarks are priced to WTI could diminish later this year as increased refinery capacity on both sides of the border would give more outlets to Canadian producers, consulting firm Deloitte said in a forecast on Tuesday. Transportation bottlenecks since the end of last year have blown out the price differential between Western Canadian Select (WCS) and WTI, and at the end of last year WCS traded at a discount of US$30 to WTI as the transportation capacity was unable to keep up with rising production from new oil sands projects sanctioned before the downturn. At the end of Q1 2018, additional storage capacity in Alberta and data about fewer crude-by-rail shipments added to concerns of a domestic oil glut , as TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline has yet to return to normal pressure levels following a leak and temporary shutdown last November. “WTI (West […]