Brent near $80 a barrel as market shrugs off Omicron variant

Oil prices extended gains on Tuesday, with Brent crude trading near $80 a barrel, despite the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, supported by supply outages and expectations that US inventories fell last week. Brent crude rose by $1.04, or 1.3 per cent, to $79.64 a barrel by 1119 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.15, or 1.5 per cent, to $76.72.

Both contracts traded at their highest in a month.

“Support comes as well from high aggregated production disruptions in Ecuador, Libya, and Nigeria and the expectation of another large drop in US crude inventories,” said UBS oil analyst Giovanni Staunovo.