Government agencies said fewer Americans applied for jobless benefits and housing starts rose slightly in November. That followed earlier reports that factory production and retail sales posted gains in November.

Benchmark oil for January delivery fell 31 cents to $88.31 a barrel in early afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, said traders are cautious because signs of the improving economy have been offset recently by occasional warnings about inflation as well as unemployment that remains at 9.8 percent.

Also, the dollar got a little stronger on Thursday, making oil more expensive for buyers with foreign currency.

Most global crude demand growth this year came from emerging economies, led by China. Some analysts expect Chinese demand for commodities will likely fade in coming years as the economy shifts toward services.

“Rebalancing of the economy over the next decade is likely to see commodity-intensity drop sharply and with it commodity demand,” Capital Economics said in a report.

“The prices of industrial commodities may already have risen to unsustainable levels.” In other Nymex trading, heating oil added 0.36 cent at $2.4871 a gallon and gasoline added 1.01 cents at $2.3193 a gallon.

In London, Brent crude fell 22 cents to $91.98 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.

Meanwhile, World stock markets were mixed Thursday. Traders were looking to an EU meeting for some broader response to the market turmoil that has led to bailouts for Greece and Ireland and threatens to trigger more. Analysts, however, warned there would likely be no shock-and-awe tactics such as making yet more money available to backstop troubled governments.

Britain's FTSE 100 was flat at 5,880.34 and Germany's DAX was 0.1 percent lower at 7,007.25. France's CAC-40 fell 0.3 percent to 3,867.27.

Asian markets were mixed on the close and Wall Street edged up on the open — the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1 percent at 11,466 and the Standard and Poor's was 0.2 percent higher at 1,237.68.

The Nasdaq composite index is up 19, or 0.7 percent, to 2,636.

In corporate news, BP shares were down 1.5 percent after the US government announced it was suing the oil company over its handling of the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The company, which is selling off assets to pay for the cost of the spill, said it would respond to the claims at a later date.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average edged up less than 0.1 percent to close at 10,311.29. Australia's S and P/ASX 200 added 0.3 percent and Taiwan's benchmark also rose.

The Shanghai Composite index dipped 0.5 percent to 2,898.14 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 1.3 percent.

South Korea's Kospi lost 0.4 percent. Benchmarks in Singapore and India also fell.

The dollar was trading at 84.19 yen from 84.27 yen late Wednesday in New York. The euro rose to $1.3239 from $1.3221.