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 The price for a barrel of oil has swung back and forth in a $10 range over the past week.
"There is no driver out there to cause prices to break out of this range yet," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. The overall market trend is still upward. There are still many supply side concerns that will continue to support prices at high levels."
By noon in Europe, light, sweet crude for July delivery dipped $1.47 cents to $135.27 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil derivatives have also swung wildly, with gasoline punishing drivers at the pump.
"A pre-lunch selloff yesterday on the NYMEX segued into a post-lunch shortcovering rally," said trader and analyst Stephen Schork in his daily Schork Report, noting that in the case of gasoline, "a 9.66 cent loss in the morning morphed into a 6.02 cent gain by the close."
Gasoline was trading at $3.5025, down by over two pennies over Thursday's close.
July heating oil futures were essentially steady at $3.9405 a gallon, and July natural gas futures dipped by more than 4 cents to $12.77 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, July Brent crude lost 56 cents to settle at $135.53 on the ICE Futures exchange.
Oil prices shot higher Thursday on reports that Nigeria's state-owned oil company will take over oil operations in parts of the country from a Royal Dutch Shell PLC joint venture, sparking fears it may cut output.
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 "Production will probably fall down after these guys take over," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., of reports that Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. plans to take over operations from Shell in Nigeria's southern Ogoni district.
Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, is a major U.S. oil supplier. Its output has already been significantly curtailed by years of militant violence.
Concerns of a possible strike by Nigerian oil workers also contributed to the market's late rally, when oil prices surged from a low of $131.55 a barrel to settle at $136.74 late Thursday in New York.
Oil touched a trading record of $139.12 last Friday. Analysts say oil is "range-trading," waiting for direction from a significant move in the dollar or change in supply and demand fundamentals.
A factor that could send crude prices lower was a report Thursday from British-based tanker tracking firm Oil Movements saying OPEC oil shipments are on track to rise by nearly 400,000 barrels a day in June.
[Associated Press; By GEORGE JAHN]
Associated Press Writer Eileen Ng contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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