Crude-oil futures were mixed in Asian trading hours Thursday after a sharp overnight drop on the lack of big headlines from Ukraine and signs of slowing oil demand in the U.S. On the New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $100.96 a barrel at 0612 GMT–down $0.49 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.18 to $107.94 a barrel. Both Nymex and Brent crude have fallen sharply for two straight sessions after the surge in prices earlier this week when Russian troops took control of the Crimean peninsula. U.S. domestic oil inventories rose by 1.4 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 28, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed. Analysts expected an overall increase of 1 million barrels. However, the real surprise for markets was the 1.4 million-barrel build-up in distillate stocks compared […]