By Yuka Obayashi

TOKYO, Reuters – On Wednesday oil prices fell, reversing earlier gains. Investors tried to evaluate the impact of Omicron coronavirus on fuel demand worldwide and assess the effectiveness of current vaccines.

After settling 3.2% higher Tuesday, futures lost 25 cents (or 0.3%) to $75.19/barrel at 0129 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil was $71.86 per barrel. This is a decrease of 19 cents or 0.3% after gaining 3.7% during the previous session.

This week, oil prices recovered from last week’s collapse due to rising optimism about the Omicron variant not causing major economic harm.

Hiroyuki Kikukawa (OTC Securities general manager for research) stated that after being oversold on concerns about the Omicron’s impact last week, “there has been a correction in this week’s market on signs the Omicron might be mild.”

He said that investors were still cautiously optimistic, and they are waiting to see if Omicron has a full impact.

Protection from the two doses can be partially bypassed by the Omicron coronavirus variant. Pfizer (NYSE:), and BioNTech partner BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccination vaccine. This was the statement by the head of research at South Africa’s Africa Health Research Institute on Tuesday.

GSK, a British drugmaker, announced Tuesday that the antibody-based COVID-19 treatment with U.S. company Vir Biotechnology, (NASDAQ:), is effective against all Omicron variant mutations.

Kikukawa indicated that the eyes of investors also focus on Iran’s nuclear talks and tensions with Russia and Ukraine as well as weather in the northern hemisphere winter.

Washington and Tehran had been in indirect talks about reinstating the nuclear pact a week earlier, but these discussions broke off Friday. Later this week, a resumption is planned for Thursday, after Western officials were dismayed at Iran’s broad demands.

According to a spokeswoman from the Foreign Ministry, Germany expects Iran to offer realistic suggestions in negotiations over its nuclear program.

According to Reuters, a top congressional aide revealed that the U.S. has reached an agreement in principle with Germany on shutting down Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine.

Investors did not react to weekly U.S. inventory data.

According to Tuesday’s American Petroleum Institute data, stocks dropped while gasoline and distillate inventories increased last week.[API/S]

Reuters analysts polled predicted that crude oil inventory data from the United States would see a second week of declines. [EIA/S]