NEW YORK: Oil prices were down slightly on Thursday as investors waited on developments in the Middle East, while falling crude inventories in the United States provided some support. Brent crude futures were down 16 cents to $74.06 a barrel at 12:25 a.m. EDT (1625 GMT), while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $70.34 a barrel, down 5 cents.

Both benchmarks had settled down on Wednesday, closing at their lowest levels since Oct. 2 for a second day in a row, after OPEC and the International Energy Agency cut demand forecasts for 2024 and 2025.

US crude inventories fell by 2.2 million barrels to 420.6 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 11, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.8 million-barrel rise. Gasoline and distillate inventories also fell last week.

“This tells me operational efficiencies are still improving,” said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics, “Markets are normalizing.”

European Central Bank cut interest rates for the third time this year on Thursday, indicating that inflation in the euro zone is now increasingly under control and the economic outlook has worsened. That decision is expected to boost oil prices as it makes borrowing cheaper, potentially boosting demand.

But fears that a retaliatory attack by Israel on Iran for the latter’s Oct. 1 missile strike could disrupt oil supplies kept prices steady, though uncertainty remains over how the conflict in the Middle East will develop.

“The country’s forthcoming retaliatory measures against Iran are still not clear,” said John Evans of oil broker PVM. He added that the Middle East “will certainly provide enough reason to move oil prices again soon enough and investors today will also be preoccupied with an abundance of financial data”.

The dollar jumped to an 11-week high on Thursday, also offsetting some gains. A firmer US currency can hurt demand for dollar-denominated oil from buyers using other currencies.