Crude oil prices cool down

NEW YORK, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- A brief rally in crude oil prices cooled down with prices dropping sharply on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday.

Crude oil prices fell $3.86 to $42.27 per barrel as a brief price run-up faded.

"People were saying appetite has returned in the new year," Brad Samples, an analyst with Summit Energy told The Wall Street Journal. "Now it's cooled off," he said.

Heating oil prices fell 0.0101 cents to $1.5433 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline fell 0.0236 cents to $1.10 per gallon. Natural gas prices fell 0.275 cents to $5.597 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.762 Thursday, up from Wednesday's $1.727 a gallon, AAA said.