Oil prices fell on Monday on mixed Chinese economic data and signs that the impact of a tropical storm on U.S. Gulf Coast production and refining would be short-lived.
Chinese industrial output and retail data topped expectations, but overall figures showed the country’s slowest quarterly economic growth in decades, dimming the outlook for crude demand.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 dropped 12 cents to $66.60 a barrel by 12:04 p.m. EDT (1604 GMT), while U.S. crude CLc1 shed 40 cents to $59.81 a barrel.
Crude oil imports from China fell in June for a second straight month, but analysts at ANZ bank said China’s imports year-to-date still looked strong.
China’s oil throughput rose to a record 13.07 million barrels per day in June, up 7.7% from a year earlier, following the start-up of two new large refineries, official data showed.