Crude Stable

Oil prices moved little Thursday, a day after rising in reaction to a U.S. government report that gasoline inventories had fallen for the fifth-straight week.

Light sweet crude for December delivery dropped 2 cents to $58.74 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In other Nymex trading Thursday, heating oil futures rose 0.36 cent to $1.6960 a gallon, and natural gas futures rose 3 cents to $8.150 per 1,000 cubic feet.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories rose 1.3 million barrels to 336.0 million barrels last week, but gasoline inventories fell by 3.7 million barrels to 200.3 million barrels.