WTI, Brent drop over $2 per barrel on session

Oil prices were significantly lower on Thursday ahead of a three-day holiday for US markets, which will be closed Friday for the Independence Day holiday.

Declines came after the US Labor Department reported that 467,000 jobs were lost in the US in June, over 100,000 more than had been expected, bringing the total jobs lost since December 2007 to 6.5 million.

In addition, the Eurozone jobs picture did not look much better as unemployment there rose to a 10-year high in May and matching the US jobless rate of 9.5 percent.

August contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude dropped $2.34 to $66.97 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude was down $2.11 to $66.68 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Nymex August futures for gasoline dropped 7 cents during the day to $1.79 per gallon while August heating oil was down 6 cents to $1.70 per gallon and natural gas was 18 cents lower to $3.62 per million British thermal units.

The retail price of gasoline in the United States, meanwhile, fell less than a cent to an average of $2.629 per gallon nationwide, 10 cents higher per gallon than they were a month ago but still nearly $1.50 less than it was last year at this time.