WTI up slightly after pipeline explosion

After surging to $95.17 per barrel in electronic trading overnight, January contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude added 39 cents to $91.01 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday.

The price spike came after four pipelines that carry 15 percent of US oil imports were closed after an explosion and fire on the US-Canada lines Wednesday afternoon.

Prices eased back after three of the pipelines reopened and it was reported that the fourth, which carries 420,000 barrels of crude oil per day could be open again within two or three days.

All four pipelines together carry around 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from Canada to the United States.

Nymex January natural gas futures dropped 3.4 cents to $7.45 per million British thermal units after the US Energy Information Administration reported that inventories were down by 12 billion cubic feet last week, less of a decline than had been anticipated.

December gasoline on Nymex fell 1 cent to $2.26 per gallon, while January heating oil traded even at $2.58 per gallon.