Brisk demand along with supply disruptions due to Alberta’s wildfires have propelled Canadian heavy crude oil prices to their highest this year. Recent prices for Western Canadian Select heavy crude, a blend of bitumen from the oil sands and conventional heavy oil, reflect an unusually narrow discount to North American benchmark oil. The weakened Canadian dollar has also boosted returns for Canadian producers, even as OPEC holds firm on output to keep world prices low in a bid for more market share. Last month, wildfires in the Cold Lake region of northeastern Alberta forced Cenovus Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. to shut down major operations and evacuate staff, cutting bitumen production by a total of 230,000 barrels a day, or about 10 per cent of the province’s oil sands output. “With the forest fires and the shutdown of those projects – though those are starting to come […]