By Enes Tunagur
LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices fell slightly on Thursday as a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine continued to exert downward pressure, along with rising crude inventories in the United States.
Brent futures were down 42 cents, or 0.6%, at $74.76 a barrel by 0900 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped 40 cents, or 0.6%, to $70.97.
Brent and WTI lost more than 2% on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said Russian that President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him and Trump ordered U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
That news and Wednesday’s U.S. oil inventories data offset higher U.S. inflation numbers that could drive the U.S. Federal Reserve to take a cautious approach to interest rate cuts in 2025, said PVM analyst John Evans.
Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer and sanctions imposed on its crude exports after its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago have supported higher prices.
ANZ analysts said on Thursday that oil prices declined on news of the potential peace talks because of “optimism that risks to crude oil supplies would ease”, pointing to the U.S. and EU sanctions.
“Signs of tightening supply have been pushing up oil prices in recent weeks,” they said. “U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies and vessels are said to have exacerbated the situation.”
A build in crude oil inventories in the United States, the world’s biggest crude consumer, also weighed on the market. U.S. crude stocks rose more than expected last week, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Enes Tunagur in London and Emily Chow in Singapore; Editing by David Goodman)
