Crude oil prices slide hard Thursday

NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices fell Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange to under $77 per barrel, despite the dollar's trend towards weakness.

"Despite the weak U.S. dollar, the oil price is struggling to break through the threshold of $80 a barrel. We view this as a sign of relative weakness and expect lower prices over the next weeks," industry analysts at Commerzbank wrote.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels in the week ending Nov. 6, putting downward pressure on prices.

The prices of light, sweet crude dropped $2.51 Thursday to $76.77 per barrel. Heating oil prices lost 0.0703 to $1.9855 per gallon. Reformulated gasoline prices slid 0.0527 cents to $1.94 per gallon. Natural gas prices lost 0.124 cents to $4.379 per million British thermal units.

At the retail level, the national average price of unleaded gasoline dropped to $2.65 per gallon Thursday, down from Wednesday's $2.654, AAA said.