By Polya Lesova & Moming Zhou, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures fell on Thursday, moving lower for the first session in four, as a rebound in the U.S. dollar and a report that showed higher-than-expected jobless claims dampened the outlook for energy demand. Crude oil for December delivery, which expires Friday, lost 22 cents, or 0.3%, to $79.38 a barrel in North American electronic trading. Crude has traded mostly between $75 to $80 a barrel this month. The number of people filing initial claims for state unemployment benefits stood at a seasonally adjusted 505,000 in the week ended Nov. 14, the Labor Department reported. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected initial claims to drop to 500,000. "U.S. energy demand remains weak, inventories are still high, and most disturbingly, this week's U.S. macro numbers seem to be pointing to a decelerating rate of recovery," said Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global. "Barring another sharp sell-off in the dollar, we do not see crude oil breaking out of its relatively tight trading range anytime soon." The dollar rebounded against its major rivals Thursday. The dollar index (DXY 75.36, +0.17, +0.23%) , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, gained 0.2% to 75.331. The Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday crude inventories fell 900,000 barrels in the week ended Nov. 13. James Williams, an economist at energy research firm WTRG Economics, called the drop in crude inventories "very modest given the impact of Ida on production and delayed shipping." The EIA will report data on natural-gas supplies at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday. Analysts polled by Platts expect an addition of between 19 to 23 billion cubic feet for the week ended Nov. 13. Current prices make it favorable for operators to inject gas now for sale during the upcoming heating season, said Tim Evans, analyst at Citi Futures Perspective, in a statement. "Given that the cash market has been trading at a substantial discount to futures, we'd guess the build would be significantly greater if storage capacity was not nearly full," Evans said. Natural gas for December delivery fell 5 cents, or 1.2%, to $4.21 per million British thermal units. In other energy trading, December gasoline rose 0.3% to $2.0183 a gallon, and December heating oil was almost flat at $2.0481 a gallon. China's petroleum demand rose 10.2% in October from a year ago, Platts said on Thursday citing its analysis of official data. Chinese oil demand reached an estimated 33.88 million metric tons last month, or 8 million barrels, a day, compared with 30.75 million metric tons in October 2008, according to Platts. Oil demand in China, the world's second largest oil consumer had climbed by 12.6% in September from a year earlier.

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