Oil climbs to fresh four-week high as Omicron concerns ease

Oil rose from the highest settlement in four weeks as traders weighed falling U.S. crude stockpiles against the threat to demand from the omicron virus variant.

Futures in New York traded above $73 a barrel, though liquidity is dwindling heading into the holiday period. U.S. crude inventories dropped by 4.72 million barrels last week, according to government data, almost twice the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. That offset some concerns about the impact of the omicron variant on global consumption.

Trading volumes are starting to thin before Christmas, while open interest -- the total number of oil contracts held by traders