Oil prices fell to about $71 a barrel Thursday on more evidence of consumer anxiety and also growing supplies of unused crude and natural gas.

Benchmark crude for September delivery fell 97 cents to $71 a barrel on the NYME(New York Mercantile Exchange). In London, Brent prices fell 57 cents to $74.94 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Crude has traded near $71 a barrel for a few days after shooting up from below $62 last week as investors try to gauge whether a weak U.S. economy justifies a further rally.

There is still plenty of crude. Over the past two weeks more than 7 million barrels have gone into storage, rather than being refined into jet fuel, diesel or gasoline.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for August delivery fell 2 cents to $2.0298 a gallon and heating oil dropped 1.4 cents to $1.9427. Natural gas for August delivery fell 26 cents to $3.779 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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