Crude oil holds near $101

Light, sweet crude oil prices held close to $101 per barrel Wednesday morning after the International Energy Agency lowered its demand projections for 2012. IEA dropped its projection by 220,000 barrels per day in part due to a mild winter in the Northern hemisphere and in part due to the slow economic recovery. Traders expect the U.S. government's Energy Information Agency to report rising crude oil stocks this week in a report delayed a day by the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices added 10 cents to $100.81 per barrel. Home heating oil prices shed 0.56 cents to $3.0316 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline prices added 4.32 cents to $2.8145 per gallon. Henry Hub natural gas prices gained 3.8 cents to $2.525 per million British thermal units. At the pump, the national average price of unleaded gasoline dropped to $3.378 per gallon Wednesday from Tuesday's $3.381, AAA said.