By Gina Lee
Investing.com -U.S. oil rose for a sixth consecutive session on Wednesday.
Brent oil futures held on at $78.78 by 9:30 PM ET (2:30 AM GMT) and crude oil WTI futures inched up 0.03% to $76.00. Both have been aided by strength in equities.
A number of asset classes ranging from oil to equities have won back losses from late November when the Omicron variant of COVID-19 sent investors into a spiral.
But now a delay in Britain and France on imposing more COVID curbs before the end of the year have given investors new hope. As fears of its impact eased, investors have returned to risk assets.
However, Omicron has led to staff shortages that caused thousands of flight cancellations over the Christmas weekend in the United States.
Oil prices were also propped by three oil producers slowing down their oil production due to maintenance issues and oilfield shutdowns.
Tuesday’s U.S. crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute showed a draw of 3.1 million barrels the week ended Dec. 24. Forecasts prepared by Investing.com had predicted a 3.23-million-barrel draw, while a 3.67-million-barrel draw was recorded during the previous week.
Investors now also await U.S. crude oil supply data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, due later in the day.
While Russia is not likely to hit its May target of pre-pandemic oil output levels due to lacking spare production capacity, it could do so later in the year, according to analysts and company sources.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had stated that output by May is expected to hit pre-pandemic levels of approximately 11.33 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and gas condensate, as seen in April 2020.
Investors now await the OPEC+ meeting on Jan. 4, where the group will decide whether to go ahead with a planned production increase of 400,000 barrels per day in February.
At the last meeting, OPEC+ went ahead with boosting output for January despite Omicron.
The development of Iran's largest oilfield, Azadegan, is to be completed by mid-2023, according to the Iranian Oil Ministry. It is capable of total production of 320,000 barrels per day (bpd).