On Friday morning, world oil prices are steadily increasing after a prolonged fall the day before.

Despite the concern of investors about the emergence of new strains of coronavirus in India, the weakening of the US dollar provides serious support to black gold quotes. Thus, the index, which reflects the dynamics of the US dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, lost 0.09% on Friday.

The price of July futures of the Brent crude oil blend is $68.49 per barrel, which is 0.59% higher than the closing price of Thursday's session. As a result of trading the day before, these contracts lost 1.3% and reported at $68.09 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the price of June WTI oil futures at the time of writing this article is $65.1 per barrel, which is 0.6% higher than the closing mark a day earlier. The day before, the price of these contracts sank by 1.4% to $64.71 per barrel.

As for Thursday's trading session, the futures of the leading oil brands closed down for the second consecutive session. Market participants evaluated the disappointing data on gasoline consumption in the United States and continued to monitor the situation with COVID-19 in the Asian region, particularly in India. The situation in the country still remains a significant deterrent to the growth of oil prices. Note that India is the third country in the world in terms of imports of black gold.

The day before, the number of new coronavirus cases here exceeded the 400,000 mark and amounted to 412,262. The total number of infected people in India is more than 21 million. The Ministry of Health of the country reports about 230,168 deaths from COVID-19 for the entire time of the pandemic, but experts consider this mortality rate to be underestimated.

At the same time, residents of neighboring countries are increasingly afraid that the tense epidemiological situation in India may cause the emergence of new strains of coronavirus, as a result of which the global pandemic will last indefinitely.

On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy announced a reduction in oil reserves in the country by 8 million barrels, which exceeded forecasts. In view of the publication of these data, the price of black gold began to decline due to the growth of gasoline reserves by 700,000 barrels. At the same time, the supply of motor gasoline to the consumer market sank by 12,000 barrels (to 8.864 million barrels), which also put serious pressure on oil prices.

Recently, gasoline quotes have been the favorites of the energy price rally. But in order to continue this price race in the next month, they will need to receive additional support.

Thus, on Thursday, June contracts for gasoline lost almost 1.8%, falling to $2.11 per gallon, and June futures for heating oil fell by 0.7% - to $1.99 per gallon.

Meanwhile, the media reported that Saudi Arabia has reduced the official selling prices for black gold for Asia and Europe. Analysts believe that such a move could be partly due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in India.