By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was down on Thursday morning in Asia, from the past two sessions, with uncertainty remaining over the near-term impact of the omicron COVID-19 variant on fuel demand.

By 10:46 ET (03:46 GMT), the price of $85.53 had dropped 0.17% and $82.52 was down by 0.15%.

Wednesday’s showed a draw of 4.553 million barrels in the week to Jan. 7. Investing.com forecasts a draw of 1.904 million barrels, and a draw of 2.144 millibarrels was reported last week.

The day before, the draw was 1.077 Million Barrels.

OANDA analyst Edward Moya wrote in a note, “Gasoline consumption was weaker-than expected and still below prepandemic levels. If this trend continues, oil will not be able to keep pushing higher.”

The note stated that the impact of the microns on the environment is likely to be temporary.

Markets were boosted by the larger-than-expected decline in crude inventories, and the fact stockpiles have fallen to their lowest point since October 2018.

Citi stated in a note that although the EIA weekly report is less optimistic than its headline, total crude oil inventories dropped 4.8million barrels, but they were more than compensated by an increase in refined product stocks.

ANZ Research pointed out that the January 11th week saw commercial flight numbers drop 16% from their 2019 levels. According to FlightRadar 24, it was actually an improvement on the December 2021 week when commercial flight numbers dropped 20%.