NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures were lower on Thursday, giving back some of their sharp gains from the previous session when the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. stockpiles, and ahead of another report on natural-gas supplies. Crude oil for October delivery was down 42 cents, or 0.6%, to finish at $72.09 a barrel in electronic trade. Crude briefly came off earlier lows after a report that showed weekly jobless claims fell 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 545,000 last week, their lowest level since mid-July. Separately, housing starts increased to a 598,000-annualized pace in August. Analysts polled by MarketWatch expected initial claims to rise to 563,000 and housing starts to rise to a 600,000 rate. Crude futures earlier rose to an intraday high of $72.56. On Wednesday, crude jumped more than 2% after the Energy Department reported a bigger-than-expected drop of 4.7 million barrels in U.S. stockpiles of the commodity in the week ended Sept. 11. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect crude-oil inventories to have fallen by 3.0 million barrels. Natural gas also gave back some gains, with the October contract off 2.4%. It surged 13% on Wednesday. Natural gas began to surge in September after sliding all year. The EIA will release its estimates of natural-gas inventories on Thursday at 10.30 a.m. Eastern time. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect the EIA will report an increase of between 72 and 76 billion cubic feet to natural-gas storage inventories for the week that ended Sept. 11.

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