London - Oil prices were mixed on Thursday as traders digested drops in US crude inventories and jobs claims, one day after the resumption of operations by refineries in the wake of superstorm Sandy.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, rose 75 cents to $86.99 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for December fell 47 cents to $108.23 in late London deals.
The United States Department of Energy on Thursday said that American crude inventories had fallen by 2.0 million barrels last week after analysts had forecast a gain.
Elsewhere, official data showed US weekly jobless claims continued to decline, falling a modest 9 000 to 363 000 last week, the Labour Department said on Thursday.
New claims for unemployment insurance benefits in the week to October 27 - an indicator of the pace of layoffs - came in below the four week moving trend of 367 250.
The focus will switch to hotly-awaited non-farm payrolls (NFP) numbers on Friday and late on Thursday as the Department of Energy publishes data on US energy inventories for last week.
Refineries, together with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq exchange, had shut before Sandy struck but resumed business on Wednesday despite widespread power outages.
However, downstream energy demand was expected to remain weak for several days as authorities struggled to repair damage. - Sapa-AFP