Western Canadian Select is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams. It is a heavy blended crude oil, composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 25 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Energy terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—which is the benchmark for emerging heavy, high TAN (acidic) crudes— is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. WCS was launched in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana (now Cenovus), Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Petro-Canada (now Suncor) and Talisman Energy Inc. (now Repsol Oil & Gas Canada Inc.). Husky Energy has managed WCS terminal operations since 2004 and joined the WCS Founders in 2015.Crude prices are typically quoted at a particular location. Unless stated otherwise, the price of WCS is quoted at Hardisty and the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is quoted at Cushing, Oklahoma. By December 14, 2015 with the price of WTI at $35 a barrel, WCS fell "75 per cent to $21.82," the lowest in seven years and Mexico's Maya heavy crude was down "73 per cent in 18 months to $27.74.According to monthly data provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2015 "Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum to the United States exporting 3,789 thousand bpd in September and 3,401 thousand bpd in October." This has increased from 3,026 thousand bpd in September 2014. This represents 99% of Canada's oil exports and gives Americans no incentive to pay more for Canadian petroleum. In November 2018, the price of WCS hit its record low of less than US$14 a barrel. From 2008 through 2018, WCS sold at an average discount of US$17 against WTI. In the fall of 2018, the differential widened to a record of around US$50. Following the December 2 announcement of mandatory oil production cut backs in Alberta, the price of WCS rose to c.US$26.65 a barrel. Following a sharp downturn in the price of oil internationally in December, its recovery in January helped the price of WCS to increase to US$28.60 with WTI at US$48.69. The global price rose in response to lower OPEC oil productions levels.Bitumen comprises all of Canada's unconventional oil, and is either upgraded to synthetic light crude, processed into asphalt or blended with other crudes and refined into products such as diesel, gasoline and jet fuel oil.