Canadian crude producers for decades sold more than 90pc of their export supplies to US buyers. This resulted in logistical bottlenecks in crude pipelines to the US, and left Canadian market participants unable to take advantage of higher prices in Asian markets.
State-owned pipeline operator Trans Mountain began operations on its 540,000 b/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline from Edmonton to Vancouver’s Westridge docks in May 2024. It is able to send out 34 Aframax cargoes/month of Canadian crude, almost all of which go to Asia-Pacific or the US west coast . The pipeline has removed bottlenecks on lines to the US Gulf coast and resulted in a narrowing of the price discount of western Canadian heavy crude to the calendar month average of Nymex WTI at Cushing, Oklahoma.
Argus publishes daily price assessments for Canada’s Cold Lake crude, which has a low total acid number (TAN), and for Canadian high-TAN crude, shipped through TMX and sold on a fob basis at Westridge docks. Argus also publishes daily price assessments for high-TAN TMX crude on a delivered basis at the Chinese coast. These prices are used widely by industry in negotiating physical cargo trades, for internal accounting and for strategic purposes.
Argus provides detailed market analysis and explanations of the factors that affect price changes each day, and our suite of crude market services offers proprietary daily freight assessments for routes to Asia-Pacific and the US west coast, forward curve prices, weekly logistics updates across North America, and commentary on global crude market trade flows and trends.
Argus has been a trusted source for crude market pricing and market analysis globally for decades, and all of the US Gulf coast crude market derivatives contracts with significant liquidity are settled on Argus spot physical price assessments. We are also a leader in covering daily prices in delivered crude markets at the Chinese coast. Our methodologies are known for their transparency and relevance, supported by the expertise of our market teams. Our WCS Houston price is precisely hedgeable using financial contracts settling on the Argus physical WCS Houston price, and used together these assessments give a clear idea of available arbitrages on different routes from western Canada to the US Gulf coast, US west coast and Asia-Pacific.
Argus has covered domestic Canadian crude markets from our Calgary office since 2010. Argus’ Calgary office also has full-time reporters covering LPG, natural gas, biofuels and environmental markets, as well as sales staff and a Canada country manager.
