Commodities
WCS Crude Discount Widens Amid Joliet Refinery Outage
The Western Canada Select (WCS) crude oil discount to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures widened on Monday due to a power outage at Exxon Mobil's Joliet refinery in Illinois.
The outage caused the refinery, which was built and designed to handle heavier Canadian crude grades, to shut down. Units are being stabilized after the plant-wide shutdown, with an expected return to normal service by the end of this week.
The WCS discount for October delivery settled at $17.35 a barrel below WTI in Hardisty, Alberta, compared to $16.75 on Friday. This increase in the discount reflects the reduced supply of heavy Canadian crude due to the refinery outage.