Awaiting the US Federal Reserve (Fed)'s rate decision, oil prices rose slightly on Wednesday after falling earlier in the trading session.

Around 13:10 GMT (14:10 CET), the price of a barrel of Brent oil from the North Sea for delivery in February rose 0.49% to 73.60 dollars. Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in January, nibbled at 0.55% at 68.99 dollars. Earlier in the session, the two global crude oil benchmarks had reached $72.29 for Brent and $67.71 for WTI respectively, new lows since the end of June

Investors are now waiting for a series of decisions from several central banks this week, starting with the Fed later today.

The federation of industry professionals, the American Petroleum Institute (API), estimated Tuesday evening that crude inventories fell by about 2.35 million barrels last week, and that gasoline stocks increased by more than 5.8 million barrels.

Analysts expect a fall of 1.8 million barrels in commercial crude reserves, but also an increase of 1.9 million barrels of gasoline, according to the median of a consensus compiled by Bloomberg.

On the natural gas side, the Dutch TTF futures contract, considered to be the European benchmark, rose by 0.71%, trading at 35.41 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) shortly after receiving 34.050 euros per MWh, a new low since September. Gas prices remained hampered by the prospects for temperatures to soften