U. S. crude oil futures shifted lower midday on Friday as gasoline futures tumbled, extending gasoline's losses since midweek on data showing a surprisingly large increase in gasoline inventories last week.

New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures also ended lower on Friday. However, Nat Gas rose by around 5 percent on MCX on Saturday.

Crude oil speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange slashed their net long positions nearly in half in the week to June 16, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday.

Nigeria's main militant group said on Friday it had attacked an oil pipeline operated by Italian energy firm Agip, widening a campaign which has so far targeted Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell .There was no immediate confirmation from the military or from Agip.

The trend in crude oil looks on a downside. In spite of the weakness in dollar, Crude oil prices witnessed a decline which indicates the weakness in Crude oil. In addition, there has been a major unwinding of long positions in Crude oil. We recommend selling Crude oil at rise.

We expect Natural Gas to trade sideways to down during the day. Nat Gas may shed some points on the back of profit booking after a sharp rise on Saturday on MCX.