Oil Futures Reverse Early Drop in Asian Trading

Oil futures were higher by midday after start-of-week weakness Tuesday following the New Year's holiday, setting the stage for fresh 2 1/2-year highs.

--February light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently up 0.3% at $60.59 a barrel in the Globex trading session. March Brent rose 0.4% to $67.11.

--The oil market finished 2017 strongly, with the US benchmark rising in 9 of 11 sessions and Brent climbing 8 of the past 9. Both rose some 1% on Friday and have notch 4-straight months of gains for the first time since May 2016.

Write to Biman Mukherji at biman.mukherji@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 01, 2018 23:39 ET (04:39 GMT)