By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) ? Crude-oil futures extended declines in electronic trading Friday, but held above $101 a barrel ahead of a closely watched U.S. jobs report due later in the day.
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Crude-oil for February delivery /quotes/zigman/2203132 CL2G -0.26% lost 24 cents, or 0.2%, to $101.57 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange during Asian trading hours.
The drop extends a 1.4% decline for oil notched in the North American session, after a surprise increase in U.S. inventories sent the commodity sharply lower. Read more on Thursday's oil session.
Oil had gained 4.4% over two sessions as Iran signaled it might close off the passage through the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for economic sanctions from the U.S. and Europe announced over the weekend.
?Escalation of the situation involving Iran is likely to be the single largest source of upside risk to oil prices in the short term, and in 2012,? strategists at Barclays Capital said.
?The potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz still remains the ultimate fear in the oil market,? they noted.
Trading across commodity and equity markets was expected to remain relatively subdued ahead of the release of the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for December, due later Friday.
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Jan. 6, 2012 12:42a
Virginia Harrison is a MarketWatch reporter based in Sydney.
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