U.S. crude up on oil platform fire, Wall St rise

NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures prices rose on Thursday, lifted by reports of an oil facility fire in the Gulf of Mexico and also helped by Wall Street's rise.

The weaker dollar also provided some lift to oil, which had been weighed down earlier by high U.S. oil inventories and caution ahead of Friday's key August nonfarm payrolls report.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, October crude <CLV0> rose 35 cents, or 0.47 percent, to $74.26 a barrel by 12:23 p.m. EDT (1423 GMT), trading from $73.11 to $74.39. (Reporting by Robert Gibbons; Editing by David Gregorio)