Canadian oil prices briefly plunged as low as $15 per barrel last week, after a U.S. federal judge blocked the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada’s oil industry has lurched from pipeline crisis to pipeline crisis, with projects blocked at every turn. Just a few months ago, the Trans Mountain expansion – a proposed pipeline to be built from Alberta to the Pacific Coast – also ran into trouble and is now ultimately in doubt. The inability to build new capacity capable of shipping higher levels of oil out of Alberta has crushed Western Canada Select (WCS), a price marker that tracks heavy oil from Canada. WCS has historically traded at a discount relative to WTI, taking into account differences in quality and the higher cost of transit, but the discount has exploded this year as Alberta’s pipelines are tapped out. In October, WCS traded at a record […]