London (awp/afp) - Oil prices stabilized on Wednesday after falling at the start of the week, disturbed by new concerns about the outlook for demand.

Around 1200 GMT (1300 CET), a barrel of Brent North Sea oil for February delivery gained 0.70% in London from Monday's close of $50.19.

The US barrel of WTI for the month of February grabbed its side 0.71% to 47.13 dollars.

Since the beginning of the week, Brent erased some of the significant gains recorded since the beginning of November, which notably took the European benchmark above the psychological threshold of 50 dollars per barrel on December 10.

On Wednesday, the price “tests the threshold of 50 dollars without daring to cross it, but the impact of a new strain of the coronavirus worries investors”, comments Sukrit Vijayakar, analyst at Trifecta.

This new strain could be even more contagious, and has prompted several countries to prevent or limit travel to the UK, raising fears for the worst for global travel.

Mr. Vijayakar also notes that prices had risen in recent days to levels more seen since the start of the pandemic "while demand is still far from the levels of the beginning of the year" and that a "correction was inevitable".

“Investors have also had to take two bad news from the United States: President Trump opposes the congressional stimulus plan, and American stocks have increased according to the first available figures”, underlined Stephen Brennock, analyst at PVM.

the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) will release its weekly data on US oil reserves on Thursday.

Analysts are counting on a drop in crude inventories of 3 million barrels, according to the median of a consensus compiled by Bloomberg, but according to the professional federation American Petroleum Institute, these reserves would have on the contrary increased by 2.7 million barrels.