By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures inched up a little in electronic trading Friday, finding buyers after finishing near six-week low the previous day in the wake of bearish crude-supplies data.
Light, sweet crude-oil for delivery in March CL2H +0.07% rose 17 cents, or 0.2%, to $96.53 a barrel during Asian trading hours, after dropping $1.84 in regular New York Mercantile Exchange session on Thursday.
The performance came ahead of the release of key U.S. non-farm payrolls data for January later in the day.
The U.S. dollar offered little directional cues, with the ICE dollar index DXY -0.07% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six major global units, slipping to 78.994, down from 79.010 in North American trade late on Thursday.
Among other energy products, March gasoline futures RB2H +0.30% climbed 0.4% to $2.88 a gallon, and heating oil HO2H +0.01% edged up 0.1% at $3.06 a gallon.
March natural-gas prices NG12H -1.53% dropped 1.7% to $2.51 per million British thermal units.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
