Crude oil holds near $93

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NEW YORK, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices held steady near $93 per barrel Thursday in New York.

Crude oil shed 6 cents to $92.86 per barrel, with prices supported by a tax deal that is expected to help avoid a second U.S. recession following the 2007-09 downturn -- the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

The bill supersedes a budget that economists predicted would put a severe strain on the sluggish economic recovery.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, home heating oil for February shed 0.27 cents to $3.0224 a gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline lost 0.6 cents to $2.7917 a gallon.

Natural gas prices dropped .4 cents to $3.194 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, AAA reported the national average price for regular unleaded gasoline rose to $3.292 per gallon from Wednesday's $3.291.