Brent oil price holding steady in busy trading session

Brent oil futures are trading slightly down on Tuesday, but are holding steady after five straight higher closes. In London, Brent crude oil was down around a dollar and just below the $78 mark on the ICE Futures Exchange.

“The complex is pulling back this morning as the crude oil rally is getting a bit extended,” Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois, said in a note.

The euro turned lower against the US dollar after a weak German survey raised concerns about the euro zone economy’s outlook. A stronger US dollar usually has a negative effect on oil prices. Oil often falls as the dollar rises, since a weaker dollar makes crude cheaper for international investors, while a stronger dollar usually turns them away from commodities including crude oil.

Separately, striking French oil refinery workers have closed all six of Total’s french refineries and remained supportive to oil prices, but some analysts warned that support for oil prices from that situation could be fleeting.

“There is a high risk concentration on this single event and when and if the strike is called off there will be a high risk of a sharp correction in gasoline,” said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.

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