OIL fell as low as US$86 a barrel yesterday before recovering and finishing slightly higher.

Benchmark crude settled at US$88.72 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 1 cent. Crude was down almost 3 percent yesterday, part of a broad sell-off in commodities that pushed gold to its biggest one-day drop in 30 years.

Gold and other commodities regained some ground yesterday, and the stock market bounced back from its worst daily decline since November.

Meanwhile, the dollar weakened against the euro and the yen. That made oil, which is traded in dollars, more appealing to investors using foreign currency.

Brent crude, which is used to price oil used by many US refiners to make gasoline, fell 72 cents to finish at US$99.91 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Brent hasn't traded below US$100 a barrel since July.

In other futures trading on the Nymex:

- Wholesale gasoline rose 2 cents to end at US$2.78 a gallon.

- Heating oil dropped 2 cents to finish at US$2.81 a gallon.

- Natural gas rose 2 cents to end at US$4.16 per 1,000 cubic feet.