Oil slides over 2%; Brent below $74

Oil drilling rigs

Oil prices declined in early session today, Nov. 6, after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that US crude inventories rose last week.

International benchmark Brent crude was trading down 2.14% at $73.91 a barrel, at 09:09 am Makkah time, erasing the previous session's gain of 0.60%.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 2.07% to $70.50 a barrel.

API’s weekly data issued on Nov. 5 showed that crude inventories in the US rose by 3.13 million barrels, which indicates weak demand for the black gold in the world's largest economies.

Investors are awaiting official weekly inventory data from the Energy Information Administration today, with analysts expecting a rise of 300,000 barrels after a decline of 500,000 in the previous week.

Oil prices have been under increasing pressure as the counting of votes in the US legislative and presidential elections begins, with preliminary results so far indicating a lead for Donald Trump, in addition to his Republican Party winning the majority of seats in the Senate.

"Early signs of a Trump victory have sent the dollar and US bond yields higher, weighing on oil prices," Tony Sycamore, Market Analyst at IG Markets, told Reuters.

The dollar index, which measures the value of the US currency against a basket of six major currencies, jumped 1.63% to 105.11 points. A stronger greenback makes it more expensive to buy basic commodities such as oil for traders in other currencies.