Oil eases slightly on Gaza ceasefire

By Arathy Somasekhar HOUSTON (Reuters) -Oil prices edged slightly lower on Thursday after Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas signed an agreement to cease fire in Gaza. Brent crude futures were down 36 cents, or 0.6%, at $65.88 a barrel at 11:42 a.m. ET (1542 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 30 cents, or 0.5%, at $62.25. Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas signed an agreement on Thursday to cease fire and free Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, in the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's initiative to end the war in Gaza. Under the ceasefire deal, fighting will cease, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza, and Hamas will free all remaining hostages it captured in the attack that precipitated the war, in exchange for hundreds of prisoners held by Israel. "Crude futures are in a corrective phase as the Israel/Hamas conflict looks to be ending," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. 'WIDE-RANGING' IMPLICATIONS FOR OIL MARKETS "The peace agreement is a major breakthrough in recent Middle Eastern history – its implications for oil markets could be wide-ranging, from the possibility of a decrease in the Houthis' attacks in the Red Sea to an increase in the likelihood of a nuclear deal with Iran…" Rystad Energy's Chief Economist Claudio Galimberti said in a note. The OPEC+ group, made up of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, agreed on Sunday to a November output hike that was smaller than market expectations, easing oversupply concerns. Prices had gained around 1% on Wednesday to reach a one-week high after investors viewed stalled progress on a Ukraine peace deal as a sign that sanctions against Russia, the world's second-largest oil exporter, would continue for some time. Meanwhile, total weekly U.S. petroleum products supplied, a proxy for U.S. oil consumption, rose last week to 21.99 million barrels per day, the most since December 2022, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. (Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in London, Florence Tan in Singapore and Georgina McCartney in Houston. Editing by Mark Potter, Jane Merriman, Nick Zieminski, William Maclean)

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