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Oil prices fall slightly after US jobs report

[December 08, 2012]  (AP) -- The price of oil ended the week lower after the latest U.S. jobs report offered a mixed picture of the economy.

Benchmark oil dropped 33 cents to finish at $85.93 per barrel in New York Friday, which marked the fourth consecutive day of price declines. Oil fell 3.4 percent this week.

The Labor Department said 146,000 jobs were created in November, which was more than economists had anticipated. The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent from 7.9 percent in October, but that was largely because more people stopped looking for work and weren't counted as unemployed. And job gains for September and October were revised lower.

Meanwhile, in another bad sign for energy demand in Europe, Germany's central bank lowered its expectation for economic growth next year.

At the pump, the average price for gasoline fell nearly a penny to $3.37 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service. That's nearly 9 cents more than a year ago.

In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:

• Heating oil fell 2.79 cents to finish at $2.9153 per gallon.

• Wholesale gasoline rose less than a penny to end at $2.5974 per gallon.

• Natural gas fell 11.5 cents to finish at $3.551 per 1,000 cubic feet.

On the ICE Futures exchange in London:

• Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of oil, fell 1 cent to $107.02 per barrel.

[Associated Press]

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