Fired up: Canadian blaze boosts oil
Oil prices jumped today after a massive wildfire ravaging the heart of Canada’s oil sands region cut crude output there in half.
The sprawling blaze hit the province of Alberta last week and has now spread across an area larger than Greater London. More than 500 firefighters are tackling the inferno, which has forced out 88,000 inhabitants of oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray and destroyed a fifth of homes there.
More than a million barrels of daily production capacity has been knocked out in the area, home to the world’s third-largest reserves of oil.
That added to factors already affecting supply, such as a decline in US shale output and falling production in Latin America and Asia. Demand, however, has remained firm.
After rising 1.9%, US crude futures fell back slightly to $45.15 a barrel while Brent crude was 0.7% higher at $45.71.