Canadian Crude's $31 Discount: Comparing Rory Johnston's WCS Call with Alberta's Data

The claim, in Rory Johnston's words

On Oct 28, 2026, Rory Johnston posted: “Western Canadian Select crude differentials continue to get crushed, now $31/bbl below WTI in Hardisty, Alberta. That's tied for the widest spread in late-2022, and before that the late-2018 diff blowout that forced production curtailment in early 2019.” His post carries his own chart; read it on X.

The discount history in Alberta's data

The Government of Alberta publishes monthly average WCS (Hardisty) and WTI prices. Monthly averages smooth daily swings, so a $31 day sits above the month it falls in. Read them as the floor of each episode.

On those averages, the discount was $45.93 in Nov 2018 and $43.55 in Dec 2018. In late 2022 it was $26.93 in Nov and $29.30 in Dec. Since Jan 2019, no month has averaged wider than Dec 2022 ($29.30). Sep 2026, the latest month published, averaged $16.94.

The daily moves in October and November

Alberta has not yet published October. Market reports fill the gap. CalRock's Hardisty settlements, reported by Reuters, put the discount at $25.20 on Oct 8 and $27.00 on Oct 16. Platts assessed it at $28.00 on Oct 21. Reuters reported it reached as wide as $31 in the first week of November, matching Johnston's figure, and $25.75 on Nov 10 as freight rates eased.

Why it widened

Reporting from the period names several causes. Record tanker freight cut demand for Canadian heavy barrels re-exported from the US Gulf Coast (Reuters, Oct 8). Export pipelines are full: Enbridge set November Mainline apportionment for heavy crude at 16% at Superior, and Trans Mountain set a record 7% for October (S&P Global, Oct 21). Analysts at TD Cowen also pointed to Venezuelan imports into the Gulf Coast, refinery disruptions and rising oil-sands output (Reuters, as reported Oct 20).

What it means for producers and buyers

For Alberta producers, every dollar of discount comes off the price they receive, and through it off provincial royalties. For Gulf Coast refiners that run heavy crude, the same move made Canadian barrels cheaper: Platts assessed WCS at Nederland, Texas, $19.50 under WTI on Oct 21 (S&P Global), and Reuters reported a record $23 discount at Houston in late October.

Pulling WCS and WTI with OilPriceAPI

Our WCS_CRUDE_USD series is not a Hardisty assessment: it is an indicative quote that has tracked WTI at a near-fixed discount, so it missed this widening entirely. We have filed that as api#10855, and the page WCS crude oil price is being relabelled. Until a real Hardisty source is in place, use Alberta's monthly series for the WCS side, as the snippet does, and OilPriceAPI for WTI.

import requests

# Alberta's monthly WCS (Hardisty) and WTI averages, US$/bbl (open data).
rows = requests.get(
    "https://api.economicdata.alberta.ca/data",
    params={"table": "OilPrices", "Type": "WCS;WTI"}, timeout=15,
).json()
by_month = {}
for r in rows:
    kind = (r.get("Type ") or r.get("Type")).strip()
    by_month.setdefault(r["Date"][:7], {})[kind] = r["Value"]

# WTI from OilPriceAPI for the daily side of the spread.
wti = requests.get(
    "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest",
    params={"by_code": "WTI_USD"},
    headers={"Authorization": "Token YOUR_API_KEY"}, timeout=10,
).json()["data"]
print("WTI", wti["price"], wti["created_at"])
for month in sorted(by_month)[-3:]:
    m = by_month[month]
    if m.get("WTI") and m.get("WCS"):
        print(month, "discount", round(m["WTI"] - m["WCS"], 2))

What to watch

Alberta's October average, when published, shows whether the month averaged above late 2022's $29.30. Enbridge's December apportionment and Trans Mountain's nominations show whether the pipes stay full. Tanker freight rates show whether the Gulf Coast re-export route reopens.

Related: WTI vs Brent, live Brent price, and our earlier check where the Strait of Hormuz barrels went.