SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices slipped on Wednesday for a third straight session as investors took profits while looking ahead to U.S. inventories date due later in the day for pointers on where prices will head next.
Brent crude for May dropped 78 cents to $66.74 per barrel at 0601 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for April was down 65 cents at $63.36 a barrel.
Prices gained support last week from the OPEC+ decision to largely maintain production cuts in April. They then initially jumped on Monday, with Brent rising above $70 a barrel, after attacks by Yemeni Houthis on Saudi’s oil heartland, before settling back as the alarm subsided.
“It’s a realization that there was no impact on supply from the attack,” Reuters quoted Virendra Chauhan, a Singapore-based analyst at consultancy Energy Aspects, as saying.
He further said a combination of factors including top importers China and India drawing crude from storage at current high prices and expectations of a return in Iranian supplies had also cooled prices.
Crude inventories rose by 12.8 million barrels in the United States in the week to March 5, Reuters cited trading sources as saying.
Official figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) are expected Wednesday.
