As the dollar index headed higher, prices of crude oil held just above $79 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday.

After hitting a session high at $80.39 per barrel, April delivery light, sweet crude oil settled down $1.22 to $79.09 with the dollar index up 0.54 percent. Per gallon oil prices fell 0.0429 cents to $2.0359. 0.0476 cents were lost in reformulated gasoline blendstock prices to end the day at $2.0682 per gallon. Henry Hub natural gas prices lost 0.121 cents to $4.774 per million British thermal units.

AAA said that at the pump, the national average price of unleaded gasoline was $2.66 per gallon on Tuesday, up from Monday's $2.648. (With Input from Agencies)