View of the Syncrude oil sands extraction facility near the town of Fort McMurray in Alberta Province, Canada on October 25, 2009.MARK RALSTON/AFP / Getty Images
Canada has benefited the most from the crude oil rally of the past month, with heavy Western Canadian Select the leader among eight major North American grades.
WCS has risen 48 per cent since March 13, topping Bakken, West Texas Intermediate, Alaska North Slope and other grades, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It ended Wednesday at $44.94 (U.S.) a barrel, up from $30.44 on March 13.
New pipelines and the strongest seasonal U.S. Midwest refinery runs since 2012 helped boost U.S. imports of Canadian crude to 3.11 million barrels a day over four weeks through April 10, the most in Energy Department data back to 2010.
"We are bringing in more imports from Canada than we ever have," Carl Larry, head of oil and gas for Frost & Sullivan LP, s aid by phone from Houston Wednesday. "The refineries in the Midwest, it doesn't seem they took a break for maintenance."
WTI futures rose to $56.39 a barrel Wednesday, the highest settlement of 2015, from $44.84 on March 13. It traded at $55.65 at 10:33 a.m. Thursday in New York. Crude futures plunged to a six-year low of $42.03 last month as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintained production quotas amid surging U.S. output.
Canada derives most of its crude from the oil sands of Alberta, where bitumen is dug or melted with steam and pumped out of the ground.