Oil prices eased slightly on Thursday but remained close to their one-month highs hit the previous day as investors remained confident in robust demand despite the spread of the Omicron variant.

The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in February, which is the last day of use as a benchmark contract, yielded some 0.64% to 78.72 dollars. In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for the same month lost 0.88% to 75.89 dollars. Predictions of robust demand were bolstered by weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), which reported a 3.6 million barrel decline in commercial crude reserves American.