(LONDON) Oil prices were flat on Thursday, the day after weekly U.S. reserves data came out lower than expected, with investors still monitoring Iran nuclear talks.
Posted at 7:13 a.m.
At around 5:45 a.m., the price of a barrel of Brent North Sea oil for April delivery rose just 0.07% to $91.61.
In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in March gleaned 0.27% to 89.90 dollars.
“The price of a barrel of oil has increased slightly, the easing of the Ukrainian crisis not having been enough to compensate for the drop in American reserves”, comments John Plassard, analyst at Mirabaud.
The release of the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) report on US inventories on Wednesday, which showed a drop of 4.7 million barrels, surprised the market giving a slight boost to oil prices .
Analysts were indeed forecasting an increase of 1.5 million barrels for the past week, according to a consensus compiled by Bloomberg.
“A week ago, inventory data such as that released yesterday would likely have triggered a more pronounced and more lasting price rise,” said Carsten Fritsch of Commerzbank.
For the analyst, the fact that oil prices did not increase significantly in response is probably due to “the efforts of the American government to counter the high level of oil prices”.
Main lever for Washington: the Iranian nuclear talks, which restarted quietly on Tuesday in Vienna. “The United States is intensifying its pressure on Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement,” the analyst continues.
Since the reinstatement of US economic sanctions by Donald Trump’s administration in 2018, Iran’s market participation has been severely restricted.
The country, a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was exporting about 2.45 million barrels a day when the United States withdrew from the original agreement, according to the US Congressional Research Service.
While negotiations appear to be headed in the right direction, “a deal is far from guaranteed, however, and with such a tight market crude is likely to remain high,” said Oanda analyst Craig Erlam.
Crude prices are still moving fairly close to their highest in more than seven years.