Crude oil prices topped $97 per barrel Monday morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange. West Texas Intermediate crude added 65 cents to reach $97.25. Reformulated gasoline blendstock for January added 3.51 cents to $2.6644 a gallon. January heating oil gained 4.92 cents to settle at $3.0249 a gallon while natural gas lost 12 cents to reach $4.25 per million British thermal units. The national average price of unleaded regular gasoline dropped to $3.228 a gallon from Sunday's $3.233 a gallon, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report said.