Crude oil prices gain sligthly

Crude oil prices rose slightly Tuesday as market instability caused Libya to call for a production cut to prop up world prices.

The market is really uneasy, Andy Lebow, senior vice president at MF Global Ltd. told The Wall Street Journal.

As economies falter, demand has slackened. People are absolutely in near panic and everybody wants to keep money in cash, said Bill O'Neill, an analyst at Logic Advisors.

Crude oil prices, near their low for the year, gained $1.58 on the New York Mercantile Exchange to $90.06 per barrel. Heating oil prices fell 0.0034 cents to $2.5057 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline fell 0.0262 cents to $2.0628 per gallon. Natural gas prices lost 0.12 cents to $6.768 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.48 Tuesday, down from Monday's $3.504 a gallon, AAA said.