To be sure, oil prices have declined everywhere over the past week on news that OPEC and Russia might agree to lift production levels. But regional differences are wreaking havoc on the oil market, dragging down some benchmark contracts more than others. Western Canada Select (WCS) , for instance, consistently trades at a discount to WTI, but the spread has widened recently. On May 23, WCS traded $17 per barrel lower than WTI, which is, to be sure, a very large discount. However, WCS has plunged this week, and by May 31 the Canadian heavy oil benchmark was trading at $41 per barrel, or $25 below WTI. Pipelines are full and the bottleneck in Alberta is weighing on the Canadian benchmark. This has pushed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to extreme lengths to get the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion built. But, the ceiling on midstream capacity is expected to persist, […]