Crude oil prices slightly eased in Asian trading Thursday, after surging to a five-month high of $102.59 a barrel in Wednesday's North American session.

Light sweet crude for December delivery declined 20 cents to $102.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange during Asian trading hours. Brent crude oil futures for Jan delivery declined 0.29 percent to $111.8 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.

Oil prices surged Wednesday as investors cheered news about a pipeline stake sale that could potentially alleviate supply bottlenecks and boost demand for U.S. and Canadian crude.

Futures rallied 3.2 percent to a five-month high after Enbridge agreed to acquire 50 percent stake in the Seaway pipeline from ConocoPhillips and plans to reverse the direction of crude oil flows on the pipeline to enable it to transport oil from Cushing, Okla., to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Enbridge expects the reversed Seaway line could be in service at an initial capacity of 150,000 barrels per day by the second quarter of 2012 and is expected to be expanded to 400,000 barrels per day by early 2013.

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