The pan-European STOXX 600 rose 0.5% by 0720 GMT, adding to gains made earlier this week when the index erased all of its pandemic-driven losses.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $71.1 billion in February, up $3.3 billion from $67.8 billion in January, revised.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 3.5 million barrels to 498.3 million barrels.

Novatek seeks to raise $11 billion in external financing and has said it planned to get the funds by the first half of this year.

Brent rose by 34 cents, or 0.5%, to $63.08 a barrel. WTI was up 32 cents, or 0.5%, to $59.65.

EIA forecasts that Brent prices will average $65/b in the second quarter of 2021, $61/b during the second half of 2021, and $60/b in 2022.

Iran met in Vienna with the remaining signatories of the deal – the EU, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany. While the US was also in Vienna, it did not participate directly in those talks but met separately with the deal signatories in a different part of the city.

Global growth is projected at 6 percent in 2021, moderating to 4.4 percent in 2022.

Japan’s Nikkei was a shade higher while Australian shares rose 0.6% and South Korea’s KOSPI added 0.5%. Chinese shares, however, were weaker with the bluechip CSI300 index down about 1% after a strong rally last week.

The Xe-100 is an 80 MWe (scalable to a 320 MWe four-pack) high-temperature gas cooled reactor which uses TRISO (tristructural isotropic) particle fuel.