By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com – Oil prices rebounded Thursday from two days of heavy selling, after a lack of compelling news on Covid’s Omicron variant, and as producer alliance OPEC+ stuck to the number of barrels it planned to roll out in January.

For days on end, there had been speculation that the 23-nation OPEC+ — comprising the 13-member Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and 10 other oil producers steered by Russia — would cancel the additional 400,000 daily barrels it had targeted each month since July.

The alliance chose to keep the status quo regarding its production. Oil traders were probably tired of hammering on the market for almost 20% in the last week. They decided that OPEC+ should be rewarded by driving crude prices up.

Another reason the stock market rebounded was a lack of news about Omicron, which allowed Wall Street stocks to rise.

On Wednesday, markets were shaken by the news that the US had reported its first case of Omicron in a Californian who was returning from South Africa. But on Thursday, there were few updates on the variant other than a Singapore-based infectious diseases doctor, Leong Hoe Nam, saying that the Omicron is likely to ‘dominate and overwhelm’ the world in 3-6 months.

Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, also stated that the variant might slow down the U.S. economy’s recovery from the pandemic.

“The decision to stick to planned increases was sensible” on the part of OPEC+, said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. As it was waiting for more information on Omicron, Erlam said that the alliance had realized the importance of maintaining production consistency.

Erlam explained that OPEC+ also hedged for higher oil demand to heat the winter months, January-March. “They had already planned for surges this winter, which also allows them to be patient.”

WTI (or the benchmark U.S. crude oil price) settled at 66.50 per barrel, up 93cs or 1.4%. WTI had lost 17% from the Nov. 23 positive close of $78.50, which was almost a year ago. The WTI had fallen 23% more from the $85.41 high in October, which was seven years ago.

The global standard for oil and London-traded crude settled at $69.67, up by 80 cents or 1.2%. Brent had lost 16% from its Nov. 23 positive close at $82.31, which was 82.6 cents. The stock was 21% lower than its 7-year peak of $86.70, reached in mid-October.