Brent holds near $106 as US mulls easing sanctions

According to The Express Tribune, Brent crude hardly moved on Thursday and finished at $105.92 a barrel, shedding 14 cents or 0.13%. Market participants were weighing a possible American move to loosen curbs on the so-called shadow fleet, while conflict in the Middle East kept a risk premium attached to prices.

US WTI futures climbed $2.88, or 3.03%, to end at $97.97 a barrel, helped by a large drop in American crude inventories. The Energy Information Administration said crude stockpiles dropped 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million barrels during the period ending October 9, far more than the 288,000-barrel decline analysts had expected in a Reuters poll.

The Department of Energy argued that loosening curbs on the shadow fleet would do nothing to aid Russian oil shipments. A few days earlier, President Donald Trump had briefly suspended restrictions on Russian diesel in response to a worldwide spike in prices.