The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that the return of Venezuelan oil to the U.S. oil market and surging production from the Alberta oil sands are putting pressure on Canadian heavy oil prices. The Globe's Emma Graney writes that the discount applied to Western Canadian Select heavy crude deepened to $28 a barrel below North American benchmark on Wednesday, a gap $15 wider than a year ago (all figures U.S.). That means Canadian oil producers are not benefiting fully from today's U.S. price of nearly $98 a barrel, and shows the industry is still captive to the U.S. market, but still down from $43 a barrel in October, 2018. With the Trans Mountain pipeline system to the West Coast running at capacity and exports from Venezuela hitting the U.S. market at an unexpected pace, analysts say there is increased urgency for Canada to diversify exports to Asia through the proposed Pacific Link pipeline. Venezuelan crude exports to the U.S. have gone from 125,000 barrels a day at the start of the year to an average of 600,000 barrels a day this month. That has increased "much quicker than people thought it would," adding to the urgency to increase pipeline capacity for producers, TD Cowen analyst Menno Hulshof said.