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Bakken Crude Discount Widens After North Dakota Refinery Fire
By Aaron Clark - Jan 19, 2011 3:37 PM CT
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Business ExchangeBuzz up!DiggPrint Email .Bakken crude’s discount to benchmark West Texas Intermediate widened the most since at least October after a fire at Tesoro Corp.’s Mandan refinery in North Dakota.
The fire was in a process unit and Tesoro is working to bring it under control, Mike Marcy, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail. The 60,000-barrel-a-day plant processes mostly sweet domestic crude from North Dakota, he said.
Bakken crude’s discount widened $1.35 to $4.60 at 12:09 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The premium for Syncrude weakened $1.50 to 25 cents a barrel. Syncrude is a light, low-sulfur synthetic oil derived from the tar sands in Alberta.
U.S. Gulf crudes strengthened as the discount for West Texas Intermediate versus Brent jumped the most in more than a week, making imports more expensive and domestic grades more appealing.
The spread between WTI, the U.S. benchmark, and Brent, its more expensive European counterpart, based on February futures prices, widened 83 cents to $6.32 a barrel at 4:10 p.m. in New York. Cargoes from Europe and West Africa are typically purchased at a premium or discount to Brent.
Light Louisiana Sweet’s premium widened 60 cents to $7.75 a barrel, while Heavy Louisiana Sweet increased 45 cents to $6.80 a barrel over WTI at 3:52 p.m.
Mars Blend’s premium widened 30 cents to $2.20 a barrel. Poseidon strengthened 30 cents to $1.20 over the benchmark. Southern Green Canyon strengthened 45 cents to a premium of $1.
West Texas Sour’s discount widened 5 cents to $2.80. Thunder Horse’s premium to WTI narrowed 10 cents to $5.30.
The discount for Western Canada Select narrowed $5.25 a barrel to $22.50.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
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