Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets will open relatively unchanged on Thursday after a volatile month. Investors are closely following developments in Ukraine-Russia conflicts and volatile energy prices. 

At 2 AM ET (0600 GMT), Germany’s contract traded 0.1% lower, while France saw a 0.2% drop and the U.K. contract fell 0.1%.

European stock markets closed lower on Wednesday due to disappointment over the inability of Russia and Ukraine to make a breakthrough in their negotiations. This was in response the Russian invasion of late February which triggered the current war between the two countries.

After suffering setbacks in Kyiv’s capital, the Ukrainian military is now ready for new aggressions in the East of Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the White House Kate Bedingfield stated that the United States wants to increase economic pressure on Moscow by imposing additional sanctions against Russia over the next few days.

European stocks are experiencing a difficult quarter. The has fallen over 8% in the past year and both the and the broad have dropped nearly 6%.

Some of those concerns lessened Thursday, after oil prices slumped following reports that the U.S. is considering a from emergency reserves over several months in order to tackle prices which have climbed above $100 a barrel in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration could make the announcement later Thursday, the reports said, with the total release from the country’s strategic petroleum reserve potentially as much as 180 million barrels.

According to speculation, the International Energy Agency also has called an emergency ministerial conference for Friday. This is amid speculation that it will try to coordinate a worldwide release by other countries.

The news is now overshadowing a scheduled meeting of the and their associates, a group called OPEC+. This group, also known as OPEC+ expects to keep to the existing agreement of increasing oil production by approximately 400,000 barrels per hour through May.

The futures closed at $102.09/barrel, 5.3% less than the previous day, and contract prices fell 4.2% to $106.72. 

Europe saw the fourth-quarter rise by 1.3%, which is 6.6% more than the previous year. The February quarter was up 0.3%. 

European economic data also include and data on consumer inflation, and data about unemployment. 

Corporate news Sanofi (NASDAQ:) is likely to be in the spotlight after the French healthcare group priced its first sustainability-linked bond issue that will be indexed on access to medicines, and worth 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion).

Also, the price of gold fell 0.6% at $1,922.30/oz while it traded 0.1% higher to 1.1166.