Nowhere has the opportunity been bigger than near Canada, where crude is trading for $43 a barrel below U.S. benchmark prices due to bottlenecks. That is painful for producers there, but highly lucrative for companies with nearby refineries in Canada or the upper Midwest, from Exxon to smaller fuel makers like HollyFrontier Corp. “U.S. refining has really gone from being a dog to being a fairly attractive business model,” John Auers, an executive vice president at consultancy Turner, Mason & Co., said. “I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.” Phillips 66, which says it is the largest industry buyer of heavy Canadian crude, operated its nearby refineries at 108% of capacity during the third quarter, earning an average $23.61 a barrel processed there. That helped lift quarterly profits to nearly $1.5 billion , an 81% increase from the same period last year. Exxon Chief Executive Darren […]