BANGKOK

The price of oil fell to near $95 per barrel today in overseas trading after new signs of a choppy economic recovery in the United States.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 12 cents to $95.04 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 86 cents to close at $95.16 on the Nymex on Thursday.

Applications for U.S. unemployment aid rose last week by 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the highest in six weeks, the Labor Department said. A report on housing was neutral, while manufacturing in the mid- Atlantic region fell.

That data came on top of the 17-nation euro region remaining mired in recession after contracting for a sixthstraight quarter in the January March period.

“Several forces should keep the region in recession, including continued fiscal austerity, poor credit conditions in peripheral economies and weak external demand,” analysts at Capital Economics said in a market commentary. “The U.S. is the only major advanced economy to have achieved steady growth since 2009. The latest data have been mixed, but the fundamentals look strong enough to sustain a solid, if unspectacular, recovery.”

Brent crude, a benchmark for many international oil varieties, fell 6 cents to $103.72 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

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