WTI, Brent crude see slightly higher prices

Crude oil prices were up again Thursday, but not by nearly as much as Wednesday’s gains in a day of volatile trading that saw prices rise early then fall below Wednesday’s close before gaining again just before the close of floor trade.

West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery added 65 cents to $97.81 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange while November contracts for Brent crude gained 37 cents to $95.21 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

At least part of the price games came on reports of new attacks by militants on oil facilities in Nigeria, where output has fallen by nearly 300,000 barrels just in the past five days due to a series of attacks, although at least one official said that of the total of about a million barrels of production capacity that is currently off-line, only around 30 percent of that is due to actions by militants.

While crude oil in New York traded at above $100 per barrel for a time in New York, gains could not hold at that level due to continuing fears that demand will decline more than it already has and on new data showing that US natural gas inventories gained 67 billion cubic feet last week, more of an advance than had been expected.

Nymex October natural gas futures were down 31 cents to $7.60 per million British thermal units, while Nymex October gasoline added 2 cents to $2.48 per gallon.