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“You get there by next spring, which is very quick,” said Michael Tran, analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

“While 325,000 barrels per day is not going to meaningfully impact the global oil balance, it’s extremely influential for really kickstarting Canadian oil prices,” Tran said, adding that the cuts were a “heavy-handed mechanism” to raise prices.

Western Canadian Select, the heavy oil benchmark in Canada, soared nearly 37 per cent on the news, up to around US$30 per barrel, according to Bloomberg data, with the blend trading in the low $20 range below the U.S. crude, compared WITH $32 before the announcement.

Rory Johnston, analyst at Scotiabank in Toronto, said the cuts could narrow the discount for WCS to around US$20 in the first quarter of 2019, down from an earlier estimate of around US$29.

The decision by Notley to curb oil supplies marks the most substantial market intervention in decades, and comes after discounts for Canadian heavy oil breached US$50 in recent months, the highest on record.

Alberta’s pipeline woes have spurred governments to seek out ways to help get their oil to market. Notley also recently announced the province would buy 120,000 barrels per day of rail capacity to move more barrels to refineries. In August, Ottawa bought the Alberta-to-B.C. Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan Inc., but a court ruling has halted construction on the project.

While producers said they would comply with the mandatory cuts, executives from Canada’s Suncor Energy Inc., Husky Energy Inc. and Imperial Oil, integrated producers with domestic refinery and upgrading capacity, expressed disappointment.