Sweet Louisiana Oils Strengthen as WTI-Brent Spread Widens

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The premiums for Light Louisiana Sweet and Heavy Louisiana Sweet oils strengthened as West Texas Intermediate crude’s discount to Brent widened.

The January WTI-Brent spread widened 71 cents to settle at $9.53 a barrel. The gap for the contracts nearest to expiration has narrowed by 66 percent since reaching a record of $27.88 a barrel Oct. 14.

When Brent increases versus WTI, it strengthens the value of low-sulfur U.S. grades that compete with West African oil priced against the European benchmark.

Light Louisiana Sweet’s premium above WTI increased 15 cents to $10.65 a barrel at 4:44 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Heavy Louisiana Sweet’s premium added 60 cents to $11.15.

Thunder Horse’s premium widened 10 cents to $8.85 above WTI. The premium for Mars Blend added 40 cents to $6.70 a barrel. Poseidon weakened 25 cents to $5.75 a barrel over WTI.

Southern Green Canyon’s premium narrowed $1 to $5.25 a barrel and West Texas Sour’s discount widened 5 cents to 85 cents.

The discount for Western Canada Select widened 85 cents to $12.90 a barrel.

Syncrude’s premium slipped 5 cents to $2.90 a barrel. Syncrude is a light, low-sulfur synthetic oil derived from the tar sands in Alberta.

--Editors: David Marino, Richard Stubbe

To contact the reporter on this story: Gene Laverty in Calgary at glaverty@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net