FX.co ★ Oil loses in value expecting results of talks in Vienna

On Thursday, oil fell amid a possibility of bigger oil supply from Iran, if the US and Iran come to a consensus.

Thus, Brent futures for July delivery declined by 0.6% to $68.46 per barrel. Brent crude closed with a rise of 0.3% to $68.87 per barrel. At the same time, August futures dropped by 0.58% to $68.33 per barrel.

July WTI futures lost 0.54% to settle at $65.85 per barrel. On Wednesday, futures added 0.3% to trade at $66.21 per barrel.

Market participants are focused on the negotiations between Iran and other countries about the renewal of the nuclear agreement. The talks are taking place in Vienna. Investors are looking forward to the news about the date of the resumption of oil supplies in case of success. If the countries come to an agreement, by 2022, oil production in Iran may return to 3.9 million barrels a day.

Analysts suppose that at the end of the week, oil prices could be under significant downward pressure. However, the US statistical data somehow supported the quotes. According to the US Energy Department, oil reserves declined by 1.7 million barrels to 484.3 million barrels during the last week. Economists had expected a smaller drop of 1.05 million barrels.

At the same time, reserves at the terminal in Cushing (Oklahoma), a storage place for oil traded on the NYMEX, slid by 1 million barrels during the last week.

Petrol inventories in the US decreased by 1.74 million barrels, and reserves of distillates fell by 3.01 million barrels. Analysts had expected a drop in petrol inventories of 700 thousand whereas distillates reserves should have been reduced by 1.6 million barrels.

In the US, demand for petrol increased by 3% to 9.48 million barrels.

On Thursday, oil prices declined also because of the rising US dollar. On Wednesday, the US dollar index, which reflects the greenback's dynamic against the basket of six major currencies, rose by 0.4%. On Thursday, it hovered near the same level.