Oil prices hovered near $77 a barrel Wednesday in Asia, the Associated Press reported. Benchmark crude for July delivery was down 30 cents to $76.64 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.82 to settle at $76.94 on Tuesday. In other Nymex trading in July contracts, heating oil gained 0.25 cent to $2.0710 a gallon and gasoline dropped 0.46 cent to $2.1169 a gallon. Natural gas was steady at $5.190 per 1,000 cubic feet. Brent crude was up 69 cents to $76.89 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.
