According to traders, the low Canadian crude oil flow to the refinery hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, has helped to ease the glut in the past two weeks.
In the last two weeks, crude stockpiles at Cushing slumped by 646,578 barrels, according to data from market intelligence firm Genscape.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, in the week ending September 11, the Cushing hub stocks went down as US imports of Canadian crude slipped to 3,057,000 bpd from 3,226,000 bpd the previous week.
In Canada, oil producers have been gradually restarting much of the 1 million bpd crude production shut in the spring. However, in the past few weeks, crude production has been interrupted.
Imperial Oil shut the production at its Kearl oil sands temporarily in September due to a pipeline outage while Suncor Energy cut its oil output for 2020 due to a fire in August at its Base Mine.
The surplus in Cushing is helped by the lack of flow, mitigating the impact of the falling global fuel demand, which has been keeping the demand hampered.
Other than that, the decrease in supply has boosted Canadian prices with the discount on Canadian heavy oil to WTI last week falling to its lowest level in nearly two months.
