us oil futures finished a few cents lower on thursday erasing most of an overnight plunge in prices that had touched their lowest intraday levels of the year the market had become “deeply oversold” and the combination of shortcovering and speculative dipbuying sent futures back above the key 2023 support band between 66 and 68 a barrel said tyler richey coeditor at sevens report research june west texas intermediate crude clm23 fell 4 cents or nearly 01 to settle at 6856 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange after trading as low as 6357 factset data show