Brent near $ 80
Market does not pay attention to Omicron

Oil prices leveled higher on Tuesday, with Brent crude closing near $ 80 a barrel despite the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus, aided by supply outages and expectations that U.S. inventories have plummeted last week .
Brent crude closed at 1:39 p.m. EST (1839 GMT) up 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $ 78.94 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 41 cents, or 0.5%, to $ 75.98.
Both contracts were trading at their highest level in a month, helped by the strength of US equity markets.
"The stock market appears poised to end the year at or near record highs, which is having a slight impact on the oil market and driving crude oil stocks higher," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates LLC of Galena, Illinois.
"Support comes from the cumulative production stoppages in Ecuador, Libya and Nigeria and the expectation of a further sharp decline in US crude oil inventories," said UBS oil analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
The three oil producers declared force majeures on part of their oil production this month due to maintenance issues and closings of oil fields.
A preliminary Reuters poll on Monday found US crude oil inventories likely to have declined for the fifth straight week, while gasoline inventories were broadly unchanged for the past week.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Monday that England will not receive any new COVID-19 restrictions until the end of 2021 as the government expects further evidence on whether the health service can cope with high infection rates.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to alleviate the shortage of COVID-19 tests as the Omicron variant threatens to flood hospitals and thwart travel plans.
Omicron-related staff shortages resulted in thousands of flight cancellations in the United States over the Christmas weekend.
Investors are waiting for the OPEC + meeting on January 4th, when Allianz will decide whether to continue the planned production increase of 400,000 barrels per day in February.
At its last meeting, OPEC + stuck to its plans to increase production in January, despite Omicron.
Like the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on Monday that money managers increased their net long positions in US crude oil futures and options for the week ending December 21st.
The speculator group increased its combined futures and options position in New York and London by 4,634 contracts to 259,093 during the period.





