Bloomberg 深度：加拿大重质油对 WTI 折价扩大至逾 26 美元/桶，油砂生产商相对定价承压

While the world continues to experience an oil-price surge, Canadian crude producers are failing to get top dollar for their barrels.

The discount for Canadian heavy oil versus US supplies — a measure that’s widely scrutinized by the oil market — has flared out dramatically in the past few weeks. Producers in Alberta’s oil sands are now receiving about $26 a barrel less that what their rivals in the US are getting.

The gap has widened thanks to the combined effects of US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions. First, after the removal of President Nicolás Maduro in January, Canadian producers faced increased competition from Venezuelan oil, a similar type of heavy crude that some refineries are optimized to use.

In subsequent months, the Iran war sent tanker shipping rates skyrocketing, leading to a glut of heavy oil in the US and lowering demand for Canadian supplies.

Canadian crude consistently trades at some level below US prices, and that discount has long been a source of frustration domestically, along with the country’s reliance on sending oil to US refiners. The western province of Alberta produces the vast majority of the country’s barrels, exporting about 90% of it to the US. That dependence is now driving Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to prioritize diversifying trade away from the US amid an intensifying trade war.

The only export pipeline to Canada’s west coast is already at full capacity, hampering producers’ ability to get a better price for their barrels. Carney is backing the construction of a new million-barrel-a-day pipeline to the BC coast to address the export crunch. Alberta’s oil could then also compete more with the higher Brent oil benchmark on global markets.

Read More: Carney Invokes New Powers to Fast-Track Pacific Oil Pipeline

The main factors causing the rapid widening of the price gap in recent weeks are “related to the Iran War and specifically what’s happening in shipping markets right now,” said Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context Corp. “Generally, it’s all bad news for Canadian oil.”

Western Canadian Select at Hardisty, Alberta, is trading at a greater than $26 a barrel discount to a monthly average of West Texas Intermediate, according to General Index and Modern Commodities prices. That’s about a 50% drop in relative price in just over a month. The discount was less than $14 in July.

On the US Gulf Coast, Canadian Cold Lake crude’s discount to WTI is greater than $17 a barrel, also the largest in three years, according to Link Data Services. Canada’s oil is typically priced lower due to both its quality and pipeline shipping costs to get to refiners in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast.

Read More: Canadian Oil No Longer Takes Long Road to Asia as Freight Surges

Meanwhile, high prices for fuels such as diesel and a lack of complex refining capacity are prompting the refiners that are operating to maximize output, which yields more high-sulfur fuel oil, further weighing on heavy crude oil prices in the Gulf, Johnston said in an interview.

While many Canadian oil companies are receiving less relative to US benchmarks, the run-up in prices caused by the Iran war has been a windfall for the industry. They have made their operations more efficient in the last decade, lowering the cost to produce a barrel and are now reaping rewards from that effort and overall increased oil prices.

The primary driver of the discount now stems from the threat of attacks in the Persian Gulf has caused tanker rates to rise to record highs this month, trapping heavy crude in the US Gulf Coast that could normally be shipped overseas. The attacks have taken some capacity offline and raised demand for the very large crude carriers, Johnston said.

Read More: The $1 Million-a-Day Oil Tanker Is Here: Javier Blas

Canadian shippers have turned to the sole pipeline to the country’s west coast. Trans Mountain’s conduit carrying oil from Alberta to the Vancouver area this month had to impose its highest level of space rationing since the system was expanded in 2024. The volume of oil to depart Vancouver in the first two weeks of October was the highest for a similar period of time since May, according to Vortexa data.

In the past, the extra time required to ship oil from the Gulf Coast to Asia versus out of the Vancouver port made little difference to the cost, Johnston said. But with tanker shipping rates rising so much, that is costing north of $15 million “so that time and that distance makes a huge difference now.”

Low oil prices for Canadian producers could persist, according to Johnston. A similar situation existed in 2022 and early 2023, he said.

“I’m not saying that’s going to be the exact same, but that’s the best parallel we have,” he said. “I would be happily surprised if we could get Hardisty back under $20 by the end of the year.”