Crude oil holds near $86

Crude oil prices held under $86 per barrel in electronic trading in New York, as commodity trades continued Tuesday while a storm shut down most of Wall Street. Post tropical storm Sandy forced the closure of equity markets for the second consecutive day -- the first time since 1888 that markets shut down that long due to a weather incident. But trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange for metals and energy commodities was active. In mid-morning trade, West Texas Intermediate crude oil for December delivery added 26 cents to $85.80 per barrel. Reformulated gasoline lost 2.69 cents to $2.6142 a gallon. Home heating oil gave up 3.32 cents to hit $3.0541 a gallon. Natural gas shed 1.15 cents to reach $3.688 per million British thermal units. At the pump, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.534, down from Monday's $3.543, AAA reported. Copyright 2012 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.