us oil futures finished higher on thursday recouping some of the losses they suffered during a twosession decline “it’s been a few decades since oil had this bad of a start to a new year and energy traders jumped all over the news that the colonial pipeline had to halt operations after a leak occurred” said edward moya senior market analyst at oanda “the shutdown should be over on saturday but the unexpected disruption helped oil prices stabilize” he said data from the energy information administration released thursday meanwhile revealed a smallerthanexpected weekly rise in us crude supplies and declines in gasoline and distillate stockpiles the us benchmark wti crude for february delivery clg23 rose 83 cents or 11 to settle at 7367 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange