Oil markets slip after three days of gains; U.S.-Europe trade tension eases

TOKYO (Reuters) – Oil prices are slipping into the face of a sluggish dollar, but there is still a lot of pressure in the United States.

Brent LCOc1 futures were down 22 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $ 74.32 a barrel by 0236 GMT, after gaining 0.8 percent on Thursday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate CLc1 futures were 7 cents lower, at $ 69.54, after posting a nearly 0.5-percent gain to the previous session.

Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, noted trading volumes were about a quarter of the daily average. "We are looking forward to the inventory numbers next week," he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, struck a surprise deal on Wednesday that ended the risk of an immediate trade between two powers.

A trade war would be likely to be used, which is used heavily in shipping, construction and other economic activity.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it was "just halting" oil shipments through the Red Sea shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb after an attack by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Any move to the Bab al-Mandeb, which is between the Yemen and the Red Sea, would be possible to halt oil shipments through Egypt's Suez Canal and the Red Sea crude oil pipeline. and Mediterranean.

An estimated 4.8 million barrels a day of crude oil and refined products flowed through the world in 2016 towards Europe, the United States and Asia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

However, Saudi Arabia has the Petroline, also known as the East-West Pipeline, which mainly transports crude from fields clustered in the east to Yanbu for export. This could be attributed to a bottleneck caused by Bab al-Mandeb's closure.