BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Oil prices eased on Tuesday, extending losses into a second consecutive session after last week’s rally, although concerns about tighter Russian and Iranian supply amid widening Western sanctions checked losses, according to Reuters. 

Brent futures edged down 8 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $76.22 a barrel by 07:52 a.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 15 cents, or 0.19 percent, to $73.42. 

Both benchmarks slid on Monday, after rising for five days in a row last week to settle at their highest levels since October on Friday amid expectations of more fiscal stimulus to revitalize China’s faltering economy. 

“This week’s weakness is likely due to a technical correction, as traders react to softer economic data globally that undermines the optimism seen earlier,” said Priyanka Sachdeva, senior market analyst at Phillip Nova, referring to bearish economic news from the US and Germany. 

Also dragging on oil prices is the rising supply from non-OPEC countries that, coupled with weak demand from China, is expected to keep the oil market well supplied this year. 

Market participants are waiting for more data this week, such as the US December nonfarm payrolls report on Friday, for clues on US interest rate policy and oil demand outlook. 

“The move higher in crude oil prices appears to be running out of momentum,” ING analysts wrote in a note. 

“While there has been some tightening in the physical market, fundamentals through 2025 are still set to be comfortable, which should cap the upside.” 

Worries over tightening Russian and Iranian supply amid sanctions, however, kept a floor under oil prices. 

The uncertainty has translated into better demand for Middle Eastern oil, reflected in a hike in Saudi Arabia’s February oil prices to Asia, the first such increase in three months. 

Money managers raised their net long US crude futures and options positions in the week to Dec. 31, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Monday. 

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Monday it had transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman this week after holding them for more than two decades without charge at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The transfer was the latest and biggest push by the Biden administration in its final weeks to clear Guantanamo of the last remaining detainees there who were never charged with a crime.
The latest release brings the total number of men detained at Guantanamo to 15. That’s the fewest since 2002, when President George W. Bush’s administration turned Guantanamo into a detention site for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in what the US called its “war on terror.” The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and military and covert operations elsewhere followed the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks.
The men in the latest transfer included Shaqawi al Hajj, who had undergone repeated hunger strikes and hospitalizations at Guantanamo to protest his 21 years in prison, preceded by two years of detention and torture in CIA custody, according to the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Rights groups and some lawmakers have pushed successive US administrations to close Guantanamo or, failing that, release all those detainees never charged with a crime. Guantanamo held about 800 detainees at its peak.
The Biden administration and administrations before it said they were working on lining up suitable countries willing to take those never-charged detainees. Many of those stuck at Guantanamo were from Yemen, a country split by war, with its capital held by the Iranian-allied Houthi militant group.
The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, did not acknowledge taking in the prisoners early Tuesday. Officials in the country did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. The key Western ally has taken in some 30 prisoners in the past since the founding of the prison.
However, those prisoners have since been released in circumstances unexplained by Oman. Two Afghans once held by Oman returned to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in February. One Yemeni died in Oman after being told he and 27 others would be repatriated to Yemen, the British activist group CAGE International said.
“Faced with little choice, 26 of the men and their families returned to Yemen after being pressured by the Omani government, which offered each $70,000 as compensation,” the group said. It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to the 28th prisoner.
The transfer announced Monday leaves six never-charged men still being held at Guantanamo, two convicted and sentenced inmates, and seven others charged with the 2001 attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia.