Sept 4 (Reuters) - The discount on Western Canada Select

to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures

widened on Thursday.

WCS for October delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at

$11.55 a barrel under the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to

brokerage CalRock, compared with $11.45 a barrel discount on

Wednesday.

* WCS discounts had already widened in August, in part due

to BP's

440,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Whiting, Indiana,

being affected by flooding after a severe thunderstorm. The

refinery is often the single largest purchaser of Canadian

crude.

* Another factor behind the summer's widening trend is the

threat

of competition from Venezuelan heavy crude exports to the U.S.

Gulf Coast, which resumed last month due to easing of U.S.

sanctions.

* WCS discounts narrowed slightly at the start of September

amid

the restart of BP's Whiting unit and strong buying in Asia, said

Wood Mackenzie analyst Dylan White.

* But WCS discounts will likely remain wider in the second

half of

the year than they were in the second quarter, as strong Western

Canadian production should drive high utilization along existing

pipeline routes, White said.

* Global oil prices eased about 1% to a two-week low on

Thursday

on a surprise build in U.S. crude inventories last week and

expectations that OPEC+ producers will increase output targets

at a meeting this weekend.