Crude oil prices settled over the weekend, but have broken out of a month-long pattern, hovering above $78 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The price of light, sweet crude jumped $6.76 last week as investors found renewed strength in equities, the Dow Jones industrial average breaking 10,000 points for the first time in a year. For the previous month, prices had stalled between $65 and $72 per barrel.

Crude oil prices eased back 13 cents Friday to Monday to $78.40 per barrel. Heating oil prices lost 0.0022 cents to $2.0275 per gallon. Reformulated gasoline prices dropped 0.0087 cents to $1.9706 per gallon. Natural gas prices gained 0.013 cents to $4.794 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the national average price for unleaded gasoline was $2.564 per gallon Monday, up from Sunday's $2.547, AAA said.