By Gina Lee 

Investing.com – Oil was mixed on Tuesday morning in Asia as optimism on Omicron’s impact rose. Supplies remained scarce. 

slipped 0.36% to $78.23 by 8:54 PM ET (1:54 AM GMT) and  went up 0.21% to $75.73. 

“Though Omicron is spreading faster than any COVID-19 variant yet, a relatively relieving news is that most people infected with Omicron are showing mild symptoms, at least so far,” said Leona Liu, analyst at Singapore-based DailyFX. 

According to the UK’s health minister, there will be no new COVID-19 restrictions on England by the government before 2021. 

But even then, U.S. airlines cancelled more than 1,300 flights on Sunday as COVID-19 brought down the head count of staff and a number of cruise ships had to cancel stops. 

Jeffrey Halley from brokerage OANDA stated that Omicron case growth is causing disruptions to services and goods. With the global recovery story still in place for 2022, this is likely to only cause temporary nerves. 

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) and its allies have helped to drive oil prices up by more than 50%. 

The talks on the reactivation of Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord were resumed Monday by world powers and Iran. Iran stated that oil exports were the focus of the talks, which so far has not boosted its shipments. 

The next OPEC+ meeting will be held on January 4. They will decide if they will proceed with a planned 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), production rise for February. 

The producer alliance stuck to its plans at its last meeting to boost output for January despite Omicron. 

Investors are now awaiting oil supply data from American Petroleum Institute (due later in the morning).