By Biman Mukherji 
 

--Oil futures edged lower in light Asian trading on Thursday after the U.S. benchmark hit its highest level in nearly 2 1/2 years.

--January light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently down 0.2% at $57.90 a barrel in the Globex trading session. Brent fell by a similar margin to $63.17.

--While Wednesday's U.S. government reading on weekly inventories didn't show as much of a drop as estimates by the American Petroleum Institute--which stoked the day's price jump--investors still took positive cues after some recent stockpile increases.

--Oil trading will be thin today for the Thanksgiving holiday in both the U.S. and Japan. That ahead of next week's anticipated meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the likely extension of ongoing production caps.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 22, 2017 23:54 ET (04:54 GMT)