Oil futures took a slight hit on Thursday as the dollar climbed on the back of positive data from the US.

The April contract for crude fell 0.77% to $92.05 a barrel on NYMEX.

Heating oil was also lower, settling down 0.81% at $2.96 a gallon, while natural gas climbed 1.51% to $3.49 per million British thermal units and unleaded gas closed up 0.17% to $3.11 per gallon.

This followed the news that the Chicago PMI index increased from 55.6 in January to 56.8 last month, beating consensus expectations of 54.0.

In other US news, the weekly jobless claims report released by the US Department of Labor revealed that initial claims in the week ending February 23rd declined to 344,000 compared to the previous week’s reading of 366,000 (revised from 362,000).

The consensus estimate was for a reading of 360,000 claims.

In metals, gold fell 1.1% to settle at $1,578.10, giving a total decline of 5.0% for February, the fifth consecutive montly drop, mainly as a result of the rising dollar and positive data.

NR