Oil slumps this weekend. Oil prices gave ground on Friday after a week without a clear direction.

With investors still torn between bullish data and Omicron's ongoing demand risk, both crude benchmarks open lower on Friday. Around 10:40 a.m. GMT (11:40 a.m. CET), the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in February lost 1.96% to 73.57 dollars. In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for the month of January dropped 2.03% to 70.91 dollars.

Both crude benchmarks closed Thursday's session up by similar percentages before falling. The price of natural gas still showed high volatility on Friday, losing nearly 20% at the start of the session. Around 10:40 GMT, the benchmark European gas market, the Dutch TTF (Title Transfer Facility), only dropped 4.13% to 136.87 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). It hit 146.16 euros the day before, a new high since October 6.