Canada Crude-Synthetic Strengthens, Heavy Barrels Weaken

Reuters Africa reported that the premium on Canadian light synthetic crude has widened, while heavy oil prices have weakened as the asphalt season ended.

The market news is quoted as saying:

Light synthetic for October delivery was quoted at around $12.25 a barrel over benchmark West Texas Intermediate, compared with $11.50 over WTI last week. Synthetic barrels have been strong all year, but the premium has widened over the past week as Syncrude Canada Ltd, one of the country’s biggest oil sands producers, took a coker unit down for up to 45 days for maintenance.

That removed about 100,000 barrels a day of light, sweet crude derived from the Alberta tar sands. The outage comes as Husky Energy Inc works on its Lloydminster heavy oil upgrader.

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