Oil prices drop Tuesday afternoon

NEW YORK, July 22 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices dropped more than $4.80 per barrel in midday trading Tuesday before regaining strength and settling at $127.25 per barrel.

The first tropical storm of the year, named Dolly, was blamed for disruption of about 60,000 barrels a day, 4.6 percent of the daily supply from the Gulf of Mexico, The Wall Street Journal reported.

But, the storm's passing lifted worries about further disruption, leading to the price drop.

"A sell-off was in order," Addison Armstrong of Tradition Energy told the Journal.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday, the price of heating oil fell 0.0022 cents in late trading to $3.676 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline prices fell 0.002 cents to $3.145 per gallon. Natural gas prices fell 0.008 cents to $10.059 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline declined 0.014 cents to $4.055 per gallon, AAA said.