U. S. crude futures fell below $58 a barrel and settled at $57.7 when demand worries, lower equities and a stronger dollar combined to help push down prices.

U. S. natural gas also witnessed a decline of $0.227 on NYMEX.

Industrial consumption of oil in the United States, the world's top energy user, continues to drop and probably will not recover until late this year or early 2010, the chief executive officer of oil major BP Plc said on Wednesday.

A report by the U. S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed U. S. crude inventories fell by 4.7 million barrels last week, defying expectations for a 10th straight weekly build.

It is estimated United states Natural gas fund(UNG) could hold as much as 80 percent of New York Mercantile Exchange June natural gas open interest, stirring concerns that such a huge share could impact price volatility.

Gasoline supplies decreased 4.1 million barrels to 208.3 million barrels versus a forecast for a 200,000-barrel build, as gasoline output declined 208,000 bpd on the week.

U. S. refinery utilization fell 1.6 percentage points to 83.7 percent of capacity, while analysts had forecast a 0.3 percentage point gain.

Energy: Even though the inventory report was bullish, markets went down as weak U. S. retail report triggered selling in financial markets and in energy spaces. Natural Gas too declined sharply as inventories rose and on expectation that in today's evening session we might see one more build up in inventory. Natural Gas looks vulnerable to further downside.

Crude prices have a Doji in the previous session, thereby doubting the uptrend. One can take long positions today only above 2880-900 levels. Prices falling below 2880 level can trigger downside till 2830 levels.