MOSCOW, January 4 World oil prices slowed down on Thursday ahead of the release of official data on US oil reserves, trading data shows.
As of 17.36 Moscow time, the price of March futures for Brent oil increases by 0.17%, to $78.38 per barrel, and February futures for WTI — by 0.34%, to $72.94. During the day, oil prices for both brands rose by about 1%.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), commercial oil inventories in the United States fell by 7.4 million barrels last week. Analysts expected that the institute would report a reduction of almost 3 million barrels.
Later on Thursday, the US Department of Energy will publish official data. Now, as predicted, the country's oil reserves have decreased by 3.7 million barrels.
Investors and analysts at the same time generally assess the state of the oil market, the relationship between supply and demand, as well as their impact on the cost of raw materials. Thus, Morgan Stanley analysts predict that oil prices will be lower next year, but expect additional “support” from OPEC+.
«For the foreseeable future, we believe OPEC will still be willing to incur some further market share losses to support prices,» Bloomberg quoted bank experts as saying.