Oil hovered above $88 a barrel Tuesday in Asia amid hopes China and the U.S. will take new steps to bolster their economies, according to a report of the Associated Press. Benchmark crude was up 2 cents at $88.45 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.33 to end at $88.43 in New York on Monday. Brent crude was up 9 cents at $103.46 on the ICE futures exchange in London. In other futures trading, heating oil was up 0.1 cent at $2.829 a gallon and gasoline rose 0.6 cents to $2.735 a gallon. Natural gas was down 1 cent at $2.79 per 1,000 cubic feet.
