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The blue-light special price for Canadian oil has reached ridiculous levels — and it’s getting worse.

The price for Western Canadian Select (WCS) crude fell to just US$26 a barrel on Thursday, while benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $71.98.

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At one point, the price differential sat at US$52 a barrel, according to Bloomberg, and it didn’t get much better on Friday, with the discount closing at $48.50 a barrel.

“It’s a crisis,” Tim McMillan, chief executive of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said Friday.

“When we were cancelling pipeline projects over the last decade, this was the end result we should have expected.”

Rising production, a lack of pipeline capacity to move oil out of Western Canada, and several refineries undergoing maintenance in the U.S. Midwest have conspired to put the bite on Canadian oil prices.

It’s not unusual to see the price discount on WCS fluctuate, but the gap has significantly widened this year.