NEW YORK-It wasn't a con­vinc­ing move high­er, but oil man­aged to rise yes­ter­day for the first time in six days. Bench­mark oil gained 32 cents to fin­ish at US$86.05 a bar­rel in New York. The price had dropped US$6.37 a bar­rel, or sev­en per cent, over the pre­vi­ous five trad­ing ses­sions. Brent crude added 64 cents to end at US$108.49 a bar­rel in Lon­don.

The mar­ket may have been bid­ing time ahead of Fri­day's re­port on gross do­mes­tic prod­uct. An­a­lysts are es­ti­mat­ing that the US econ­o­my grew 1.8 per cent in the third quar­ter. Any read­ing above that could spark a rise in oil to the US$87-US$88 a bar­rel lev­el, said Jim Rit­ter­busch of Rit­ter­busch and As­so­ciates. In oth­er en­er­gy fu­tures trad­ing in New York:

• Nat­ur­al gas prices fell 1.6 cents to fin­ish at US$3.434 per 1,000 cu­bic feet af­ter the gov­ern­ment said sup­plies of the fu­el rose last week.

• Whole­sale gaso­line rose 7.34 cents, near­ly three per cent, to end at US$2.676 a gal­lon. Gaso­line fu­tures had dropped about 12 per cent over a two-week pe­ri­od.

AP