Crude oil futures were lower in mid-morning trade in Asia Dec. 17 as investors booked profits after an overnight surge, while analysts maintained that the near-term outlook for oil remains uncertain with the omicron variant threat still present, and the US rig count was seen rising. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now At 10:12 am Singapore time (0212 GMT), the ICE February Brent futures contract was down 11 cents/b (0.15%) from the previous close at $74.91/b, while the NYMEX January light sweet crude contract fell 18 cents/b (0.25%) at $72.20/b. Both benchmarks had settled higher by 1.5%-2.1% overnight. “Crude enjoyed a bit of a relief bump along with other risk assets after the Fed decision and a bullish set of EIA weekly stocks and demand data, but the upward momentum appears to have been exhausted,” said Vandana Hari, CEO of Vanda Insights. “The […]