The West Texas Intermediate for September delivery lost 26 cents to settle at 71.65 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for September delivery decreased 2 cents to close at 74.48 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
"It was concerns about renewed mobility restrictions in the leading consumer countries in response to the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus that had triggered the price fall," Carsten Fritsch, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Tuesday.
Traders also awaited official U.S. inventory data as the Energy Information Administration is set to release its weekly petroleum status report on Wednesday.
Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts forecast the U.S. crude inventories to show a fall of 2.5 million barrels for the week ending July 23.
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