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Bangkok - Oil prices hovered below $86 a barrel on Friday in Asia, dragged lower by weak economic and earnings news.
Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 7 cents at $85.57 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract lost $1.69 to settle at $85.64 a barrel on Thursday and is down from nearly $93 a barrel last week as evidence accumulated that demand isn't strong enough to sustain crude prices at those levels.
That the US economy, the world's biggest, continues to crawl was underlined by weak growth in durable goods orders for December and a rise in the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week.
Meanwhile US companies that are bellwethers for consumer spending reported disappointing earnings.
Amazon.com uncharacteristically missed Wall Street's revenue target. Both Procter & Gamble and rival Colgate-Palmolive reported lower profits.
Those indicators came ahead of the release later on Friday of growth figures for the October-December quarter.
In other Nymex trading for February contracts, heating oil rose 1.6c to $2.67 a gallon and gasoline added 0.7c to $2.389 a gallon. Natural gas futures for March delivery were up 1c at $4.33 per 1 000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude was up 59c at $97.97 on the ICE futures exchange.
