Updates
June 4, 2012: TransCanada will restrict some Keystone oil flow and MRO will shut down Illinois refinery for maintenance; WTI-Bakken widens.
Original Post
I'm not sure how I missed this story, and I was surprised that no one else seems to have seen it, but it helps explain the wide WTI-Bakken price spread. The link takes you to Bloomberg News.Bakken oil weakened to the widest discount in more than six weeks versus U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate prior to a planned shutdown at Tesoro Corp.’s refinery in Mandan, North Dakota.
The 58,000-barrel-a-day refinery will halt the crude unit in early June for about two weeks of work, two people with knowledge of the situation said in December. A shutdown to tie in equipment that will boost the plant’s capacity by 10,000 barrels a day is scheduled for late in the second quarter, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Romasko said during a Feb. 2 conference call.
