How Things Might Have Been -- October 27, 2022

Just think where we would be if Joe Biden had not killed the Keystone XL, and he did that the first day in office. At least no mean tweets at the time. 

Diesel and heating oil come from heavy oil.

Heavy oil comes from Canada.

Canada is relatively close to the US. 

RBN Energy: another wild ride for Western Canadian Select - WTI differentials. 

Earlier this month, the price discount for Western Canadian Select (WCS) versus WTI at Cushing blew out to more than $30/bbl — 2.5x what’s typical and a signal that something was seriously out of whack. 

Well, it turns out that several hings were — and to some degree still are — off-kilter, combining to drive down the price of Western Canada’s benchmark heavy-oil blend to its lowest levels relative to WTI in four years. The culprits? Everything from renewed pipeline constraints to a deadly refinery fire in Ohio to the aftereffects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including releases from the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the recent ups and downs in WCS pricing and the prospects for WCS-WTI differentials to return to a more normal range in the weeks to come. (Hint: This roller-coaster ride ain’t over.)