The price of March delivery light, sweet crude had peaked at $79.06 per barrel overnight before shedding 64 cents to $78.42 per barrel.
Heating oil prices lost 0.0121 cents to $2.0395 per gallon. Reformulated gasoline blendstock prices dropped 0.0039 cents to $2.0653 per gallon. Natural gas prices lost 0.078 cents to $5.094 per million British thermal units.
Prices were reacting to inventory news. The Energy Information Administration said Thursday that U.S. crude oil inventories were up 3.1 million in the week ending Feb. 12 and gasoline inventories rose by 1.7 million barrels. Distillate fuels dropped by 2.9 million barrels during the week.
Using a four-week rolling average, demand for gasoline and distillate fuels were down 1.3 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively, from the same period a year ago.
At the pump, the national average price of unleaded gasoline was $2.623 per gallon Friday, up from Thursday's $2.614, AAA said.
Copyright 2010 United Press International.
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