Oil gives up early gains, turns lower in week's last session

Oil prices turned lower and pared early gains on Friday, despite the US dollar's slip against most of it peers.

The highly contagious Omicron variant has appeared in more than 20 countries so far, as the US yesterday reported its second case but with mild symptoms so far.

The US Department of Labor reported today that the economy has added 210,000 new jobs in November, missing forecasts of 570,000 new jobs.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% from 4.6% in September, better than forecasts of 4.5%.

OPEC Plus decided yesterday to keep production levels unchanged by increasing oil production by 400,000 bpd during January.

The dollar index fell against a basket of major currencies by 0.1% to 96.01 points as of 19:06 GMT, after hitting a high of 96.4 points and a low of 95.9 points.

As of 19:02 GMT, WTI January futures fell 0.6% to $66.07 a barrel.

Brent February futures held at $69.6 a barrel.