At 11:45 GMT, the European Central Bank concluded its June 10 meeting, and decided on keeping the interest rate at 0.00% unchanged from the previous meeting, which was widely expected in the market.

Oil prices continued to rise as the US market opened on Thursday, near touching several years highs, thanks to a drop in the US crude inventories, and ahead of the latest round of Iran's nuclear talks between world powers and the Iranian government.

US crude rose about 0.6% to $70.13, from the opening level at $69.74, and hit a low at $69.30, and Brent crude rose 0.7% to $72.48 a barrel, after opening at $71.97, and hit a low at $71.54 .

US crude lost 0.4% yesterday, after it hit a 3-year high at $70.60 a barrel, and Brent crude rose 0.1% after it hit the highest since May 2019 at $72.85.

The Energy Information Administration reported yesterday that the US crude inventories fell 5.2 million barrels during the past week, while analysts forecasts a drop by 3.3 million barrels.

The total commercial inventories fell to the lowest level since the week ending on February 19 at 474 million barrels.

While the US output rose 100K barrels last week, with the total at 11.0 million barrels per day.

The Iranian government and world powers will start a new round of intensive talks later today in Vienna aimed at paving the way for Tehran to return to full compliance with the 2015 agreement in exchange for lifting US economic sanctions on Iranian oil exports.

The European Union envoy coordinating the talks stated that he believed a deal would be concluded at the new round this week.

This comes after the former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed economic sanctions on Tehran.

Energy experts projected that Iran might add between 500,000 to 1.5 million barrels per day of oil once the US sanctions are lifted.

At 12:30 GMT, the US Department of Labor showed that the unemployment claims fell to 376K during the week ending in June 4, at the lowest rate since March 2020, beating forecasts of 370K, and better than the previous reading of 385K.

At 12:30 GMT, the US economy released its reading for the consumer price index, which rose by 0.6% in May, higher than forecasts of 0.4%, but lower than the previous reading of 0.8%. 

The core reading (excluding food and fuel prices) rose by 0.7%, higher than forecasts of 0.5%, and lower than the previous reading of 0.9%. This data is positive for the US dollar.