Oil prices slid below $80 a barrel Wednesday in Asia, according to The Associated Press. Benchmark crude for February delivery was down $1.05 to $79.73 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, the contract fell $1.73 to settle at $80.79. In other Nymex trading in February contracts, heating oil fell 2.94 cents to $2.10 a gallon and gasoline dropped 3.58 cents to $2.06 a gallon. Natural gas futures skidded 6.4 cents to $5.53. In London, Brent crude for February delivery fell 93 cents to $78.89 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
