(New York) Oil prices ended close to balance on Tuesday on the eve of a weekly report on American reserves of crude and petroleum products.

The barrel of North Sea Brent for delivery in March picked up 0.05% or 3 cents in London to finish at $55.91.

The US barrel of WTI for the same month dropped 0.08% or 4 cents, to 52.61 dollars.

The American Energy Information Agency (EIA) will publish its traditional report on the state of American stocks at the end of the morning on Wednesday.

Analysts expect crude oil reserves (+1.5 million barrels) and gasoline (+1.4 MB) to rise, but distilled product reserves (-700,000 barrels) to fall.

Before falling slightly at the end of the session, black gold prices rose the rest of the day, expecting production to fall in the weeks and months to come.

“Expectations of a tightening in global supply offset fears that a chaotic launch of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns will further dull demand” for crude, summarizes Avtar Sandu, an analyst at Phillip Futures.

The fact that Iraq promised to reduce oil production in January and February, according to information reported by Bloomberg, and that “US President Joe Biden may announce preparatory measures for a ban on further oil and gas drilling on federal lands” are likely to support prices, Mr. Sandu continues.

Investors welcome the Iraqi announcement all the more because Baghdad is not generally among the top performers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and regularly exceeds the production quotas assigned to it by the cartel and its allies via OPEC+.

Meanwhile, American production remains relatively high, at 11 million barrels per day, according to the latest figures released by the EIA on Friday.

But the uptrend is calming down, notes another analyst, Stephen Innes, of Axi, due to “concerns about the effectiveness and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

In addition, “Iran plans to massively increase production,” reports Eugen Weinberg of Commerzbank. But “excessive supply is the last thing the oil market needs right now,” adds Jeffrey Halley, from