Oil advances despite rising US inventories and the Delta variant. This Thursday, black gold prices were up.

At around 09:40 GMT (11:40 CET), a barrel of Brent North Sea crude for September delivery was worth $72.86 in London, up 0.87% from the previous day's close. In New York, the American barrel of WTI for the same month gained 1.00% to 71.00 dollars. The two benchmark contracts posted a strong increase of more than 4%. But after their fall on Monday, they were still down for the week. Commercial crude oil reserves in the United States have indeed increased in the past week, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) said on Wednesday, ending eight consecutive weeks of declines and as the market waited another sharp downturn. But the latter only reacted briefly, with the WTI dropping by around 30 cents before resuming its forward march.