By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was down Wednesday morning in Asia, on the third day of losses for the black liquid. Although the new omicron COVID-19 version is unlikely to impact mobility as severely as previous variants, there are increasing concerns that supply growth could outpace demand growth by 2022.

At 11PM ET (11 AM GMT), the stock price fell to $72.93 (4 AM GMT), while it dropped to $69.89 by 1.19%.

on Tuesday said that surging COVID-19 cases, with omicron’s discovery, could dent global fuel demand at the same time as crude output is set to increase.

OPEC, on the other hand, raised Monday its forecast of global oil demand for the first quarter of 2022.

“The bearish view that the IEA had on the market is in sharp contrast to OPEC’s optimistic view, which it shared earlier this week when it issued its monthly outlook. “The divide suggests that volatility is likely to stay high in the immediate term,” ANZ commodities analysts wrote in a note.

The U.S. is a country where supply is expected to rise, with demand forecast to surpass it until at least 2022. Tuesday’s showed a draw of 815,000 barrels for the week ended Dec. 10. Investing.com’s forecasts had foreseen a draw in excess of 2.6million barrels, while a draw in excess of 3.089million barrels was reported during the week before.

Investors await the announcement, expected later today.

They also await the policy decision, due later in the day, for clues on the central bank’s timeline for interest rate hikes. This week’s key central bank policy decisions include:,, and.