flossypurseAlberta oil & the world
World events set the level of Alberta's oil price — in 2026, for months. Pipeline room sets the size of its discount.
Updated 2 November 2026, with government data retrieved the same day. The October 2026 version before this update is archived as it was published.
On 27 February 2026, Brent closed at $71.32 a barrel. American and Israeli strikes on Iran began the next day, and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the open ocean. A large share of the world's tanker-borne oil passes through it, so any threat there is read as a threat to world supply. From March 2026, during the war with Iran, tanker traffic through it nearly stopped. nearly stopped. Brent reached $138.21 on 7 April and did not close back at its pre-war level for seventeen weeks. Alberta's price went with it: Western Canadian Select, or WCS. Western Canadian Select, Alberta's benchmark export blend: heavy, sour crude priced at Hardisty, Alberta. It is costlier to refine than the light benchmarks and starts far from any coast, so it always sells below WTI. This page is about why that discount changes size., averaged $50.33 in February, $85.48 in April, and in September, the latest month published, was still 60% above where it started.
The size of Alberta's discount moved far less. WCS has sold below the American Benchmark. A reference price the market quotes everything else against. Rather than price every cargo from scratch, buyers and sellers agree on a discount or premium to a well-known blend at a well-known place. Brent, WTI, and WCS are all benchmarks. every month on record, partly because it is a Heavy and light crude. Light crude is thin and yields a lot of gasoline and diesel. Heavy crude, like Alberta's, is thick, takes more processing, and yields more low-value product, so it sells for less. that starts a long way from any ocean. Measured as a share of the WTI price, the gap averaged 24.2% in 2023, the last full year before the Trans Mountain expansion opened, 18.0% in 2025, and 18.7% from January to September 2026, through the war. Since 2005, wars, cartels and a pandemic have moved the price level, and the room in the pipes out of Alberta has driven the discount's largest and longest moves.
That reading is a working hypothesis, and the tests section sets out what would break it. The headline of the previous version, that wars moved the price for weeks, does not hold for 2026. One part of the new reading holds with an exception: from August 2022 to March 2023, through the sanctions on Russian crude, the discount stayed wide for eight months while Enbridge turned away 5.7% of nominated barrels and Trans Mountain 9.6%. Another is under test now, because all three export pipelines ran 94–98% full in the first half of 2026. The next check is the regulator's apportionment record for the months after June, when Trans Mountain began turning shippers away again.
Seventeen years, three prices, thirteen events
The three prices move together, and Alberta's is always the lowest
Every crash and spike since 2010 shows up in all three lines at once. Brent. The world's reference oil price. It tracks light crude loaded onto tankers from the North Sea. Because those cargoes can sail to any buyer, Brent responds to supply and demand everywhere. is the world price, for oil loaded on tankers that can sail anywhere. WTI. West Texas Intermediate, the American reference price. It is set at Cushing, Oklahoma, a pipeline junction deep inside the continent, so it also reflects how easily oil can move around North America. is the American price, set at a pipeline crossroads in Oklahoma. WCS is Alberta's price, set at Hardisty. A small town southeast of Edmonton where Alberta's export pipelines and a large tank farm meet. It is where WCS is bought and sold, which makes it the spot on the map where Alberta's oil price is set., about an hour southeast of Edmonton. The numbered lines mark the events this page walks through. In no month since 2010 has the coral line risen above either of the other two.
Plain words · What's a benchmark price?
There is no single price of oil. Quality differs from field to field, and a barrel's location matters as much as its contents. So the market picks a few well-known blends at well-known places and quotes everything else as a premium or discount to them. Those references are benchmarks, and the prices reported in the news are benchmark prices.
The three on this chart each answer a different question. Brent sits on the water and can sail anywhere, so it reads as the world's price. WTI sits at a pipeline junction in Oklahoma, so it reads as America's price. WCS sits at Hardisty, Alberta, further from the ocean still, so it reads as Alberta's price. When the lines drift apart, the distance between them is usually telling a story about geography and plumbing.
The world price, the U.S. price, and Alberta's price
Monthly averages, US$ per barrel · January 2010 – September 2026
Look at the right edge: all three lines jump in March 2026, at event 13, and the coral line jumps with them while staying below.
- 1.Civil war in Libya (2011-02) — About 1.5 million barrels a day of exports stop; Brent climbs above $120 within weeks.
- 2.OPEC declines to cut (2014-11) — Facing the U.S. supply surge, the cartel keeps pumping to defend market share. The price halves.
- 3.Iran's sanctions lift (2016-01) — More supply into an already flooded market. The bottom: WTI averages under $32 this month.
- 4.OPEC+ forms (2016-12) — Russia joins OPEC in coordinated cuts for the first time. Prices grind back toward $60.
- 5.U.S. leaves the Iran deal (2018-05) — Sanctions return; Iranian exports fall sharply over the following year.
- 6.Alberta's discount peaks (2018-11) — Not a world event — a pipeline shortage at home. The WCS gap hits $46; Alberta orders production cuts.
- 7.Drone attack on Abqaiq (2019-09) — Roughly 5% of world supply knocked out in one strike on Saudi Arabia — and prices recover within a month.
- 8.Pandemic demand collapse (2020-04) — A third of world demand vanishes. On April 20 the U.S. benchmark settles below zero.
- 9.Russia invades Ukraine (2022-02) — The world's second-largest exporter faces sanctions. Brent spot reaches about $133 in early March, and futures trade as high as $139.
- 10.Embargo and price cap (2022-12) — Europe stops buying Russian seaborne crude; the G7 caps its price. Discounted barrels reroute to Asia.
- 11.Trans Mountain expansion opens (2024-05) — Alberta's first big new export pipe in decades. The chronic discount narrows.
- 12.Israel–Iran strikes (2025-06) — Two weeks of strikes near the world's busiest oil strait. Prices jump, then settle within the month.
- 13.War with Iran; Hormuz shuts (2026-03) — U.S. and Israeli strikes from February 28; tanker traffic through the strait nearly stops. Brent averages $117 in April and is back above $110 in September.
2010–2014 · the surge
First, the United States more than doubled its oil production
American drillers learned to pull oil out of Shale (tight oil). Rock whose oil sits in pores too tight for an ordinary well. Drilling sideways through the rock and cracking it with pressurized fluid, known as fracking, releases the oil. This is the technique behind the American production surge., and U.S. production went from 5.4 million Barrel. The oil industry's unit of volume, about 159 litres. Canadian pipeline records arrive in cubic metres; this page converts them at 6.2898 barrels per cubic metre. a day in early 2010 to 13.0 million by the end of 2019. It reached 14.0 million in October 2025. The world had priced oil on the assumption that America would always need to import more, and that assumption stopped holding.
The strain showed in prices before any headline said so. From 2011 to 2013 the world price ran about $15 a barrel above the American price. From 2015 to 2025 the median gap between the two was $3.74. The new oil was piling up in the middle of the continent faster than pipelines could carry it to the coast: the same problem Alberta would have for the next decade, happening to Texas first.
U.S. crude production more than doubled after 2010
Monthly, million barrels per day · 2000 – August 2026
Look at 2011 onward: the line leaves the five-to-six-million band it held for a decade and keeps climbing, with one dip in 2020.
The world-American gap opened once more in 2026. In April Brent averaged $117.29 and WTI $100.32, a gap of $16.97, more than four times the 2015–2025 median.
2014–2019 · the glut
OPEC stopped defending the price, and shocks stopped sticking
In November 2014, with the new American supply flooding in, OPEC. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries: a group of large oil-exporting states, Saudi Arabia foremost, whose governments coordinate how much their industries produce. Its choices about output move world prices. met and chose not to cut production, keeping its customers rather than its price. The price halved within months. By January 2016, after Sanctions and embargoes. Sanctions are government restrictions on doing business with a country or its firms. An embargo goes further and bans the purchases outright. In 2022 Europe embargoed seaborne Russian crude, while the G7 price cap kept it moving to other buyers. on Iran lifted and, as widely reported, one more producer rejoined the market, WTI averaged $31.68, down from $105.79 nineteen months earlier. WCS averaged $17.88 that month.
Plain words · Who OPEC and OPEC+ actually are
OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is a group of oil-exporting states founded in 1960, with Saudi Arabia its largest producer. Its members' governments agree on production targets, because together they supply enough of the world's oil that pumping less tends to raise the price and pumping more tends to lower it. Nothing binds a member except its own interest, and members quietly exceeding their quotas is a recurring feature.
OPEC+ is the larger table that formed in 2016, when OPEC began coordinating with outside exporters, Russia the most important among them. The 2014 moment on this page is the choice this group faces perpetually: cut production to defend the price, or defend market share and let the price fall. In 2014, facing the American surge, OPEC chose its customers over its price.
In a market that full, even a direct hit on supply faded fast. In September 2019, drones struck the Abqaiq processing plant in Saudi Arabia and knocked out what was reported at the time as about five percent of world supply. Brent jumped 12% in one trading day. Saudi repairs came in fast, and within 14 days the price was back below where it started.
Brent gave back the Abqaiq spike within two weeks
Daily closes, US$ per barrel · August – November 2019
Look at the single tall step after the dashed line, and how quickly the line comes back down to where it was.
2018 · the discount
Alberta's worst price crisis of the decade wasn't caused by a war
The gap between WTI and WCS has a long-run median of about $15. In November 2018 it reached $45.93, the widest month on record. WTI was $57 that month. Alberta's barrel fetched $11.03. In December it averaged $5.97.
No war did this. Oil sands. The deposits in northern Alberta where the crude, called bitumen, is too thick to flow on its own. It is mined or steamed out of the ground, then diluted or upgraded so it can travel by pipeline. Most of Alberta's oil comes from the oil sands. projects years in the making added supply; every pipe out of the province was already full; and, as reported at the time, a big American refinery that buys heavy crude went down for repairs. Then the provincial government Curtailment. A government order capping how much oil producers may pump. Alberta issued one in response to the 2018 price collapse, its first such order in decades., and the gap fell from $46 to $9.62 in three months.
Plain words · Heavy oil, light oil, and why refineries care
A refinery turns crude into things people buy, and the light products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel) pay best. Light crude arrives already close to those products. Heavy crude, which is what the oil sands produce, is dense and carbon-heavy; a refinery needs extra processing units to break it down, and more of each barrel comes out as lower-value product. Sulphur adds a second penalty: high-sulphur “sour” crude corrodes equipment and must have its sulphur stripped out, and WCS is sour as well as heavy.
So Alberta's barrels appeal mainly to refineries that have invested in the equipment to handle them, concentrated in the American Midwest and on the Gulf Coast. Some discount for WCS is therefore permanent; the changes in it are what physics alone can't explain.
The gap peaked in 2018 and narrowed after the expansion
WTI minus WCS, monthly averages, US$ per barrel · 2005 – September 2026
Look at the spike at the “curtailment ordered” line, and the lower, flatter line after “expansion opens”.
A dollar gap can grow when the price grows, even if nothing about the pipes has changed. Divided by the WTI price, the same gap has a median of 22.1%. On that measure the 2018 crisis stands out further, at 42.4% for the year, and the step after 2024 is easier to see.
As a share of the price, the gap stepped down after 2024
WTI minus WCS as a percentage of WTI, monthly · 2005 – September 2026
Look at the line after “expansion opens”: it sits below the dashed median almost every month. The share also rises when WTI itself is low, as in 2015–16 and 2020.
The regulator's records show why every pipe was full. Shippers Nomination. A shipper's request for space on a pipeline for the coming month: how many barrels it would like to move. barrels for space on a pipeline, and when there isn't room, the pipeline turns a share of them away. That is apportionment, the most direct measure of congestion. Through 2018, Trans Mountain. The one pipeline carrying Alberta oil to the Pacific, running from near Edmonton to Burnaby, British Columbia. Bought by the federal government in 2018; its long-delayed expansion opened in May 2024 and roughly tripled its capacity. turned away an average of 40% of the barrels nominated to it, and the Enbridge Mainline. The largest pipeline system out of Alberta, running east across the Prairies into the U.S. Midwest. More Canadian crude leaves by the Mainline than by any other route. 32%.
The overflow went to railcars. By February 2020 Canada was loading 411,991 barrels a day onto trains, a slower and costlier way to move oil.
Plain words · How pipeline space is rationed
Pipeline space is allocated month by month. Each shipper nominates: it tells the operator how many barrels it wants to move. If the requests fit under the pipe's capacity, everyone ships. If they don't, the operator doesn't run an auction. Under Canadian rules it scales every shipper back by the same fraction, and that scaling-back is called apportionment.
The turned-away share is the cleanest measure of congestion in the public record. And the turned-away barrels don't vanish. They wait in storage tanks, ride out on railcars, or get resold into a local market that already has too much, with sellers undercutting one another to find a buyer. That last part is the mechanism that connects a full pipe to a cheap barrel at Hardisty.
Both big pipelines turned shippers away for most of a decade
Share of nominated barrels turned away, monthly, system level · CER records, 2006 – June 2026
Look at the right edge: after two years near zero, the Enbridge line rises again in 2026. Trans Mountain reported apportionment for July and October 2026 in its own notices; the regulator has not yet published those months.
Rail took the overflow when the pipes were full
Crude oil leaving Canada by train, monthly, barrels per day · 2012 – August 2026
Look at the tallest bars, in late 2019 and early 2020, just before demand collapsed.
2020–2022 · the whiplash
A pandemic took demand away, then a war took supply
In April 2020, with much of the world staying home, traders holding Futures contract. A standardized promise to deliver oil at a set place and price in a set future month. Most oil trading is the trading of these promises. Whoever holds one at expiry must actually take the barrels. for delivery at Cushing. A pipeline crossroads and tank farm in Cushing, Oklahoma: the place where WTI is priced and where its futures contracts are physically delivered. When American oil storage “fills up” in a headline, Cushing's tanks are usually the ones meant. had nowhere to put the physical barrels; storage was full. On April 20 the U.S. benchmark closed at −$36.98, meaning sellers paid buyers to take oil away. WCS averaged $3.50 for the whole month. WTI did not regain its January 2020 average of $57.52 until February 2021, ten months later.
Plain words · How a price can fall below zero
The WTI number in the news is the price of a futures contract: a standardized promise to deliver oil at Cushing, Oklahoma, in a particular month. Most traders never touch a barrel; they sell the promise on before it comes due. But a contract still held at expiry ends in real oil, and the holder must have somewhere at Cushing to put it.
In April 2020, demand had collapsed and Cushing's storage was effectively spoken for. Traders still holding the May contract on its final trading day faced taking delivery of barrels they could not store. Getting out of that promise was worth paying for, so the contract's price fell through zero. Oil was never worthless; storage had briefly become worth more than the oil.
WTI closed below zero for one day in April 2020
Daily closes, US$ per barrel · January – June 2020
Look at the one point below the zero line, and the slow climb back that follows it.
Two years later the chart ran the other way. Russia invaded Ukraine, and Brent averaged $117.25 in March 2022. In December 2022 Europe stopped buying Russian seaborne crude and the G7. The Group of Seven, a forum of large Western economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the European Union alongside. It set the price cap on Russian oil. Price cap. The G7 rule of December 2022 that Western ships and insurers may handle Russian oil only if it sold below a set price. It was designed to keep the oil flowing while shrinking what Russia earns from it.. Russia's discounted barrels flowed into Asia, competing with every other heavy, Sour and sweet crude. Sour crude carries a lot of sulphur, which refineries must strip out; sweet crude carries little. Sour therefore sells below sweet. WCS is both heavy and sour. crude, and Alberta's discount widened to $29.30 that December, its widest month since 2018. From August 2022 to March 2023, Enbridge turned away an average of 5.7% of nominated barrels and Trans Mountain 9.6%.
Plain words · Sanctions, embargoes, and the price cap
Three tools were aimed at Russian oil in late 2022, and they are easy to blur together. Sanctions restrict doing business with named countries or firms. An embargo bans purchases outright, which is what Europe applied to Russian crude arriving by sea. The price cap was the novel one: a rule from the G7 group of Western economies that Western tankers and insurers, which handle much of the world's shipping, could carry Russian oil only if it had been sold below a set price.
The cap was built to do two things at once: keep Russian barrels flowing, so the world price stayed calm, while trimming Russia's earnings on each one. The barrels rerouted to Asia at discounts and competed with the world's other heavy, sour crudes. Alberta sells into that same pool of refineries, which is how a policy aimed at Russia shows up on this page as a wider gap at Hardisty.
2024 · the new pipe
Then a pipeline opened, and the discount narrowed
For eighteen years the throughput line on the chart below hugs the capacity line: the pipe to the Pacific ran full, every month, through every price regime above. In May 2024 the Trans Mountain expansion opened after twelve years of planning, protest, court challenges, and a change of owner, roughly tripling the system's capacity (from about 302 to 874 thousand barrels a day). The blue line, barrels loading onto tankers at the Westridge. The tanker dock in Burnaby, British Columbia, at the end of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It is the only place Alberta's oil can board a ship without first crossing the United States. dock in Burnaby, reached 554 thousand barrels a day in November 2025.
Trans Mountain: eighteen years full, two years of room, filling again
Monthly throughput vs available capacity, thousand barrels per day · 2006 – June 2026
Look at mid-2024, where the dashed capacity line steps up, and at 2026, where the coral line has nearly caught it. Before 2024 the summed deliveries sometimes run above the reported capacity.
The effects arrive one by one, each in a different dataset. Apportionment on Trans Mountain: 40% average in 2018, 0% in 2025. Crude-by-rail: 72 to 88 thousand barrels a day through 2026, about 19% of the 2020 peak. Exports beyond the United States: 126,511 barrels a day in 2023, 445,697 in 2025. The PADD. One of the districts the United States uses to report its oil statistics; the abbreviation stands for Petroleum Administration for Defense District. The West Coast is PADD 5, the traditional destination for barrels leaving Westridge. took a record 389,113 in 2024. The discount averaged $18.67 in 2023 and $11.76 in 2025; as a share of WTI, 24.2% and 18.0%.
Exports beyond the U.S. rose from near zero after 2024
Annual averages, barrels per day · 2010 – 2025
Look at the coral line from 2024: decades near the floor, then a climb past the U.S. West Coast line in 2025.
World events kept coming through these months: strikes near the Strait of Hormuz in June 2025, and a tariff dispute between Ottawa and Washington that spring that mostly resolved into exemptions. The monthly gap stayed between $9.95 and $13.86 all year. Through 2025, the new pipe moved Alberta's discount more than any of the geopolitical events did.
2026 · the war
A war moved Alberta's price for months, and its discount held near the 2025 share
Abqaiq healed in 14 days. The 2026 supply shock did not. Brent's first close after the strikes, on 2 March, was $77.24. It closed above $100 on 12 March and peaked at $138.21 on 7 April. The International Energy Agency called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, with flows through Hormuz cut to a trickle from about 20 million barrels a day before the war. Brent first closed at or below its pre-war $71.32 on 26 June, seventeen weeks later. Then it rose again, to $135.51 on 2 October, a rise reporting attributed to renewed U.S.–Iran hostilities and Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia.
Brent took seventeen weeks to return to its pre-war price, then rose again
Daily closes, US$ per barrel · January – 27 October 2026
Look at the dashed line: Brent touches it only in late June and early July, then climbs away again from September. EIA's Brent is a spot price for physical cargoes; in October it ran about $20 above front-month futures.
Monthly Brent averaged at least 20% above February in six of the seven months from March to September. WCS rose 70% from February to April, and in September averaged $80.37.
The discount in dollars widened, from $11.76 on average in 2025 to $15.69 from January to September 2026. Most of that is the price level. Had the gap stayed at 2025's 18.0% of WTI, the higher 2026 WTI average of $84.98, against $65.46, would have put it at $15.33. That accounts for $3.57 of the $3.93 widening.
As a share, the gap moved in the other direction first. It fell to 14.8% in April, consistent with heavy, sour Gulf barrels disappearing from the market, then returned to 22.3% in June and 17.4% in September.
2026 · full again
All three export pipelines are close to full again
In the first half of 2026, Trans Mountain, the Enbridge Mainline and Keystone. A pipeline carrying Alberta crude south into the United States, crossing the border at Haskett, Manitoba. With Trans Mountain and the Enbridge Mainline, it is one of the three big routes out of the province. together ran 94–98% full. In 2018 the same three ran 93–100% full. In the first six months after the expansion opened, 90–93%. Trans Mountain carried 99% of its available capacity in April and 96% in June. Enbridge apportioned shippers every month from January to June, by 8.1% to 16.0%. Keystone ran at 93% of available capacity or more.
The three export pipes are as full as they were in 2018
Monthly throughput by pipeline, stacked, vs combined available capacity, thousand barrels per day · 2015 – June 2026
Look at the gap between the stacked areas and the dashed line: thin through 2018, wider from mid-2024, thin again by 2026.
More oil is arriving at the pipes. Alberta produced 4,210 thousand barrels a day in August 2026. Trans Mountain's own notices to shippers reported apportionment for July and 7% for October 2026; the regulator's published records still show it at zero through June, because they run several months behind.
Alberta's heavy barrels also have new competition in the U.S. The United States imported 655 thousand barrels a day of Venezuelan crude in August 2026, down from July's 701 thousand, against 39 thousand a year earlier. Venezuelan heavy crude competes with WCS for the same Gulf Coast refineries. Enbridge's Mainline Optimization is scheduled to add about 150 thousand barrels a day in 2027, and in July 2026 Alberta applied to the federal Major Projects Office for a West Coast heavy-oil pipeline of about a million barrels a day.
Testing the reading
What would break this reading, and what has been checked
Each line names a result that would contradict the reading at the top of this page, the measure used, and what the data show as of 2 November 2026. The first two are the headline of the previous version, which this update replaces.
- 1.
“Wars moved the price for weeks” · Does not hold
It fails if a war moves the world price, and Alberta's price level, for months rather than weeks.
Result: Brent took seventeen weeks to close back at its pre-war $71.32, then reached $135.51 on 2 October. WCS was 60% above February in September.
- 2.
“Supply shocks healed fast” · Does not hold
It fails if a large supply shock does not heal within weeks.
Result: Abqaiq, 14 days. The 2026 war, seventeen weeks, and the price rose again after it.
- 3.
World events set the level of Alberta's price, in 2026 for months · Holds
It fails if WCS returned to its pre-war level within a month of the shock.
Result: $50.33 in February, $85.48 in April, $80.37 in September.
- 4.
The pipeline expansion narrowed the discount · Holds
It fails if the narrowing is only an effect of the price level, or reverses.
Result: As a share of WTI: 24.2% in 2023, 20.3% in 2024, 18.0% in 2025, 18.7% from January to September 2026.
- 5.
A world shock moves the discount less than the pipeline did · Holds
It fails if a world supply shock moves the discount by more than the 2024 expansion did, and keeps it there.
Result: The war: 21.7% of WTI in January–February 2026, 17.9% from March to September, a 3.8-point fall; the share was 22.3% in June and 17.4% in September. The expansion: 24.2% in 2023 to 18.0% in 2025, a 6.2-point fall that has held.
- 6.
Long stretches of a wide discount come with full pipes · Holds, with one exception
It fails if runs of six months or more with the gap above its 22.1% median mostly happen while the pipes have room.
Result: Four such runs since 2010. In 3 of them Enbridge or Trans Mountain turned away an average of 10% or more of nominated barrels. The exception is August 2022 to March 2023, through the sanctions on Russian crude, when the averages were 5.7% and 9.6%.
- 7.
Congestion and the gap move together month to month · Holds as regimes, not month to month
It fails if pipeline congestion and the gap are unrelated month to month.
Result: Since 2010 the monthly correlation between Enbridge apportionment and the dollar gap is 0.16, which is weak. When Enbridge turned away 20% or more, the gap averaged $17.22; under 5%, $13.89. The pipeline effect shows up as long regimes, the 2018 crisis and the 2024 step, not as a dial.
- 8.
“The two worst discounts on record were 2018 and late 2022” · Does not hold
It fails if December 2022 is not the second-widest month on record.
Result: December 2022, at $29.30, ranks 15th of 261. The five widest: November 2018 $45.93, December 2018 $43.55, December 2007 $41.67, December 2013 $38.68, February 2013 $36.91. It is the widest month since December 2018.
- 9.
The next check: full pipes widen the discount · Pending
It fails if apportionment returns to 2018 levels, 30% or more, and the gap as a share of WTI does not widen.
Result: The pipes are as full as in 2018, at 94–98%, but Enbridge apportionment averaged 11.0% from January to June, against 32% in 2018, and rail carries about 79 thousand barrels a day. The share is 18.7%, against 42.4% in 2018. The regulator's records for July 2026 onward, and the 2027 expansions, will test it.
Reading it back
What the record can't yet say
The record says the price level follows the world and the discount mostly follows the pipes. Three things are still open.
What the remaining widening is. About $0.36 of the 2026 widening is not explained by the price level. The candidates arrived together: record Alberta output in July, fuller pipes, more Venezuelan heavy crude in the U.S., and heavy oil at 80% of Canada's export barrel in August 2026. The months on record so far cannot separate them.
How long the war holds the level. OPEC+. OPEC plus a group of outside exporters, most importantly Russia, that have coordinated production levels with the cartel since 2016. raised its quotas from June to September 2026, then paused for October and November, and the United Arab Emirates left OPEC in May. Brent closed at $123.10 on 27 October.
Whether full pipes widen the gap again. In 2018, pipes this full came with a gap of 42.4% of WTI. In 2026 it is 18.7%. What differs from 2018 so far is rationing about a third as heavy and rail at about 19% of its peak. The 2027 expansions arrive after the next several months of records.
For October 2026, Trans Mountain told its shippers it would turn away 7% of the barrels they nominated.
Show the work
Method and sources
Prices. WTI, WCS, and the Differential. The gap between two prices. On this page it means WTI minus WCS: how far Alberta's barrel sold below the American benchmark in a given month. are monthly averages published by Alberta Treasury Board and Finance. The provincial ministry whose published economic statistics include the monthly WTI and WCS prices used on this page. (2005 onward for WCS; WTI back to 1986). The share of WTI is the differential divided by WTI in the same month. Brent monthly averages and the daily windows (Brent around September 2019, WTI in spring 2020, both from January 2026) come from the EIA. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Its published series supply this page's American prices and production figures.'s published Spot price. The price of oil for immediate delivery, as opposed to a price locked in today for delivery in a future month. series. EIA's Brent is a dated spot price for physical cargoes, and in October 2026 it ran about $20 above front-month futures, which were near $106 in mid-October (CNBC). Starting February 2025, Treasury's WCS figure is derived from exchange-traded futures rather than the previous price assessor; the series is continuous but not identical in method. Monthly averages smooth over single days: the negative price of April 20, 2020 appears here as a daily close of −$36.98 in the EIA series and an April average of $16.55.
Pipelines and rail. Throughput, capacity, and apportionment come from the CER. The Canada Energy Regulator, the federal regulator of pipelines that cross provincial or national borders. Its monthly records supply this page's throughput, capacity, apportionment, rail, and export figures.'s published monthly key-point data. Trans Mountain throughput is the sum of its three delivery points (Burnaby, Sumas, Westridge); capacity is the CER's reported available mainline capacity. Enbridge is measured at the ex-Gretna border point and Keystone at the Haskett, Manitoba border point, where each carries the crude leaving Canada. Where the regulator publishes nominations but not an apportionment percentage, the turned-away share of original nominations is derived. Volumes arrive in cubic metres and are converted at 6.2898 barrels per cubic metre. Trans Mountain's apportionment for July and October 2026 comes from the company's monthly capacity announcements and trade-press reporting on them, and is not yet in the CER record.
Production and imports. EIA monthly field production of crude oil, shown from 2000, and EIA monthly U.S. crude imports from Venezuela. Alberta crude production is Statistics Canada table 25-10-0063-01, in cubic metres per month, converted to barrels per day with the days in each month.
Outside sources. The size of the Hormuz disruption is from the International Energy Agency's March 2026 Oil Market Report. OPEC+ quota decisions are from OPEC press releases. The 2022 Brent figure in event 9 is EIA's spot high of $133.18 on 8 March; the $139 is a futures print. The 2027 Enbridge expansion is from Enbridge; the West Coast pipeline application is from public reporting on the Canada–Alberta agreement.
What the gap is not. The WTI−WCS differential is not a scorecard of fairness. WCS is a heavier, more sulphurous blend that yields less gasoline per barrel and costs real money to refine and to transport, so a gap near the long-run median of $15 mostly reflects that physics.
Events. Each event is dated to the month it lands in the monthly series; the event notes state widely reported mechanisms, and the price responses shown are computed from the data on this page.
Data: Alberta Treasury Board and Finance (oil prices, Open Government Licence – Alberta); U.S. Energy Information Administration (spot prices, production, imports, U.S. public domain); Canada Energy Regulator (pipeline throughput and capacity, apportionment, crude-by-rail, exports by type and destination, Open Government Licence – Canada); Statistics Canada (Alberta crude production, table 25-10-0063-01, Statistics Canada Open Licence). Adapted from Statistics Canada; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Data fetched 2026-11-02; the page is refreshed as new months are published.
Plain-words glossary — every term on this page, in one place
- Alberta Treasury Board and Finance.
- The provincial ministry whose published economic statistics include the monthly WTI and WCS prices used on this page.
- Apportionment.
- What a pipeline does when shippers request more space than exists: it scales every request down by the same fraction. The share turned away is the apportionment percentage, and it is the plainest available measure of a congested pipe.
- Barrel.
- The oil industry's unit of volume, about 159 litres. Canadian pipeline records arrive in cubic metres; this page converts them at 6.2898 barrels per cubic metre.
- Benchmark.
- A reference price the market quotes everything else against. Rather than price every cargo from scratch, buyers and sellers agree on a discount or premium to a well-known blend at a well-known place. Brent, WTI, and WCS are all benchmarks.
- Brent.
- The world's reference oil price. It tracks light crude loaded onto tankers from the North Sea. Because those cargoes can sail to any buyer, Brent responds to supply and demand everywhere.
- CER.
- The Canada Energy Regulator, the federal regulator of pipelines that cross provincial or national borders. Its monthly records supply this page's throughput, capacity, apportionment, rail, and export figures.
- Crude by rail.
- Shipping crude in railway tank cars. It works anywhere the tracks go, but it is slower, costlier, and more accident-prone than a pipeline, so heavy use of it is a sign the pipes are full.
- Curtailment.
- A government order capping how much oil producers may pump. Alberta issued one in response to the 2018 price collapse, its first such order in decades.
- Cushing.
- A pipeline crossroads and tank farm in Cushing, Oklahoma: the place where WTI is priced and where its futures contracts are physically delivered. When American oil storage “fills up” in a headline, Cushing's tanks are usually the ones meant.
- Differential.
- The gap between two prices. On this page it means WTI minus WCS: how far Alberta's barrel sold below the American benchmark in a given month.
- EIA.
- The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Its published series supply this page's American prices and production figures.
- Enbridge Mainline.
- The largest pipeline system out of Alberta, running east across the Prairies into the U.S. Midwest. More Canadian crude leaves by the Mainline than by any other route.
- Futures contract.
- A standardized promise to deliver oil at a set place and price in a set future month. Most oil trading is the trading of these promises. Whoever holds one at expiry must actually take the barrels.
- G7.
- The Group of Seven, a forum of large Western economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the European Union alongside. It set the price cap on Russian oil.
- Hardisty.
- A small town southeast of Edmonton where Alberta's export pipelines and a large tank farm meet. It is where WCS is bought and sold, which makes it the spot on the map where Alberta's oil price is set.
- Heavy and light crude.
- Light crude is thin and yields a lot of gasoline and diesel. Heavy crude, like Alberta's, is thick, takes more processing, and yields more low-value product, so it sells for less.
- Keystone.
- A pipeline carrying Alberta crude south into the United States, crossing the border at Haskett, Manitoba. With Trans Mountain and the Enbridge Mainline, it is one of the three big routes out of the province.
- Nomination.
- A shipper's request for space on a pipeline for the coming month: how many barrels it would like to move.
- Oil sands.
- The deposits in northern Alberta where the crude, called bitumen, is too thick to flow on its own. It is mined or steamed out of the ground, then diluted or upgraded so it can travel by pipeline. Most of Alberta's oil comes from the oil sands.
- OPEC.
- The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries: a group of large oil-exporting states, Saudi Arabia foremost, whose governments coordinate how much their industries produce. Its choices about output move world prices.
- OPEC+.
- OPEC plus a group of outside exporters, most importantly Russia, that have coordinated production levels with the cartel since 2016.
- PADD.
- One of the districts the United States uses to report its oil statistics; the abbreviation stands for Petroleum Administration for Defense District. The West Coast is PADD 5, the traditional destination for barrels leaving Westridge.
- Price cap.
- The G7 rule of December 2022 that Western ships and insurers may handle Russian oil only if it sold below a set price. It was designed to keep the oil flowing while shrinking what Russia earns from it.
- Sanctions and embargoes.
- Sanctions are government restrictions on doing business with a country or its firms. An embargo goes further and bans the purchases outright. In 2022 Europe embargoed seaborne Russian crude, while the G7 price cap kept it moving to other buyers.
- Shale (tight oil).
- Rock whose oil sits in pores too tight for an ordinary well. Drilling sideways through the rock and cracking it with pressurized fluid, known as fracking, releases the oil. This is the technique behind the American production surge.
- Sour and sweet crude.
- Sour crude carries a lot of sulphur, which refineries must strip out; sweet crude carries little. Sour therefore sells below sweet. WCS is both heavy and sour.
- Spot price.
- The price of oil for immediate delivery, as opposed to a price locked in today for delivery in a future month.
- Strait of Hormuz.
- The narrow sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the open ocean. A large share of the world's tanker-borne oil passes through it, so any threat there is read as a threat to world supply. From March 2026, during the war with Iran, tanker traffic through it nearly stopped.
- Trans Mountain.
- The one pipeline carrying Alberta oil to the Pacific, running from near Edmonton to Burnaby, British Columbia. Bought by the federal government in 2018; its long-delayed expansion opened in May 2024 and roughly tripled its capacity.
- WCS.
- Western Canadian Select, Alberta's benchmark export blend: heavy, sour crude priced at Hardisty, Alberta. It is costlier to refine than the light benchmarks and starts far from any coast, so it always sells below WTI. This page is about why that discount changes size.
- Westridge.
- The tanker dock in Burnaby, British Columbia, at the end of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It is the only place Alberta's oil can board a ship without first crossing the United States.
- WTI.
- West Texas Intermediate, the American reference price. It is set at Cushing, Oklahoma, a pipeline junction deep inside the continent, so it also reflects how easily oil can move around North America.
Where to go next. The Canada Energy Regulator publishes all of its pipeline and export data openly at cer-rec.gc.ca, and Alberta's economic indicators live at economicdashboard.alberta.ca. The same period read through the climate record instead of the price record is here.
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The live charts behind this report
The same series, kept current as the sources publish. The report's own figures are as of its last refresh.
- WTI Crude Oil Spot Price
- Brent Crude Oil Spot Price
- Alberta Crude Oil Production by Type (thousand barrels per day)
- Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Destination
- Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Type
- Oil Pipeline Apportionment — Trans Mountain, Keystone and Cochin
- Enbridge Mainline — Share of Requested Volume Not Accepted
- Oil Pipeline Throughput — Enbridge Mainline, Trans Mountain and Keystone
Corrections
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