Light, sweet crude for February delivery was up 19 cents to settle at $60.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after losing value for four days.

The 8.1-million-barrel inventory drop the U.S. Energy Department reported for the week ended Dec. 22 was far more than most commodity analysts expected.

Natural gas futures rose 17 cents to $6.430 per million Btu.

January heating oil rose 0.0013 cents to $1.6218 a gallon.

Unleaded gasoline fell 0.0105 cents to $1.5716 a gallon.

AAA said Thursday the average U.S. retail gasoline price was $2.333 a gallon, down slightly from Wednesday's $2.335 a gallon.