Oil prices rose slightly after falling to a three -month low on Tuesday, with market focus now shifting to the OPEC meeting to decide on its monthly crude oil production.
Towards the end of the Asian session, Brent crude futures were up about 2.6% at $ 71.06 a barrel. Meanwhile, US WTI trading rose 2.4% to $ 67.80 a barrel.
Earlier, Brent trading fell 5.4% and WTI slipped 3.9% after being shocked by Moderna CEO Stephaben Bancel’s statement that the existing Covid-19 vaccine is unlikely to provide the same level of protection against Omicron as it did against other variants before.
This has raised investor concerns that the emergence of the Omicron variant will force travel restrictions to be tightened once again and hurt global fuel demand.
The decline continued until the New York session, before a gradual return to climb in hopes OPEC would maintain production of 400,000 barrels a day following the threat of the Omicron variant.
Meanwhile, industry data released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported U.S. crude oil supplies fell by 747,000 barrels last week, less than expectations for a decline of 1.7 million barrels.
