After a continuous rise since the beginning of last week, oil is taking a breather. Oil prices paused on Thursday.

This Thursday, the barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April lost 0.60% in London compared to Wednesday's close, at 61.10 dollars, after having touched 61.69 dollars the day before, the highest since on January 24, 2020.
The American barrel of WTI for the month of March fell at the same time by 0.56% to 58.35 dollars, after touching 58.91 dollars on Wednesday, a first since January 17, 2020.
The two benchmark contracts in Europe and the United States have appreciated by around 20% since the start of the year. Brent on Wednesday signed its ninth consecutive session of increases, the WTI closing its eighth. "Oil does not seem to have sufficient strength for a new rise, at least for the moment", commented Carlo Alberto de Casa, analyst of Activtrades.
While market observers pointed to the impact of the comments, to say the least cautious, from the Chairman of the American Federal Reserve (Fed), the International Energy Agency (IEA) also ruled on Thursday that the rebalancing of the oil market remained "fragile" at the start of the year in the face of the spread of new variants of the Covid-19 virus.