Brent oil futures open today’s trading session hovering around $110 a barrel as stock markets and oil prices turned lower ahead of today’s crunch EU Summit that needs to go well to prevent a full blown fiscal and banking crisis in the euro region.

Latest Brent Oil Price

In London, Brent crude oil futures for January 2012 delivery was trading at $110.11 a barrel, 08.02 GMT this morning on the ICE Futures Exchange.

The European oil contract closed off Wednesday’s trading session at $109.53 a barrel, or 1.2 percent lower.

Asian Stock Markets Today

Asian stock markets are mostly trading notably lower on Thursday with investors selling amid worries about the financial situation in Europe.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.8 percent, Australia’s S&P/ASX200 edged 0.3 percent lower, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index retreated 0.7 percent.

Also, the recent warning from Standard & Poor’s about a possible downgrade on most European countries credit ratings are weighing on sentiment to a significant extent.

“There remains an air of apprehension in the markets. We need to see meaningful developments out of Europe to give the markets further confidence that we have turned the corner in this crisis and that firm foundations are being laid to ensure this will not reoccur.” said IG Markets strategist Jason Hughes, Singapore.

Brent oil futures clawed back some ground even after an unexpected rise in US crude oil inventories, according to the US EIA, which reported a rise of 1.34 million barrels last week, versus a forecast for a 5 million barrel drawdown, US government data showed on Wednesday.

The numbers contradicted industry data released on Tuesday showing US crude stocks fell by 5 million barrels.

“The EIA data at times were internally inconsistent, notably relative to the crude stock build. We believe the extent of the reported crude stock build is likely to be revised downwards, or reversed, once more complete monthly data is subsequently published.” analysts at BNP Paribas said in a research note.