NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil climbed more than 2 percent Tuesday on a weaker dollar and an uptick in the U.S. housing market. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery gained $2.12 to $98.05 per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price many international oil varieties, gained $2.00 at $118.05 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. Prices rose as the dollar dropped against the euro and other major currencies. Oil, which is priced in dollars, tends to rise as the dollar weakens and makes crude cheaper for investors holding foreign money. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said construction of new homes grew by 14.6 percent last month. The report said builders began work on a seasonally adjusted 629,000 homes in June. That's about half of what economists say are needed to sustain a healthy housing market. The increase was nevertheless taken as a hopeful sign for the battered industry. Gasoline pump prices rose less than a penny Tuesday to a national average $3.678 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular is about 31 cents cheaper than it was when prices peaked in early May. It's still almost 96 cents more than the same time last year. In other Nymex trading for August contracts, heating oil added 4 cents at $3.1190 per gallon, while gasoline futures gained 5 cents at $3.1424 per gallon. Natural gas was virtually unchanged at $4.528 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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