Crude oil tops $107, barely

West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery added 8 cents Monday morning to $107.02 per barrel in New York. Crude oil has been riding higher on a series of positive economic reports from last week, including gains in manufacturing in the United States, China and the eurozone in July. While July looked positive for the manufacturing sector, the Commerce Department in the first of three estimates said the U.S. economy grew 1.7 percent in the second quarter, which is generally acknowledged as too slow to reduce the unemployment rate. On the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, reformulated blendstock gasoline shed 0.75 cents to reach $2.9872 per gallon. Home heating oil lost 0.64 cents to reach $3.065 per gallon. Natural gas lost 1.8 cents to $3.329 per million British thermal units. At the pump, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was $3.614, down from Sunday's $3.617, the AAA Fuel Gauge report said Copyright 2013 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.