Oil Slides by More Than 1%

Oil dropped by more than 1% on Monday after weaker than expected Chinese economic growth fueled concern over demand in the world's second-biggest oil consumer while a partial restart of halted Libyan output also pressured.
China's gross domestic product grew by 6.3% year-on-year in the second quarter, compared with analyst forecasts of 7.3%, with its post-pandemic recovery faltering rapidly owing to weakening demand at home and abroad, CNBC reported.
"The GDP came in below expectations, so will do little to ease concerns over the Chinese economy," said Warren Patterson, ING's head of commodities research.
Brent crude fell by $1.32, or 1.7%, to $78.55 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate crude dropped by $1.22, or 1.6%, to $74.20 on a second straight day of losses for both contracts.
"China data was always looked forward to with a degree of hope; well, for bulls anyway," John Evans of oil broker PVM said in a report. "However, the contemporary economic backdrop for Asia's driver seems to now be wheeled out for the bears."
Both benchmarks had notched three weeks of gains and touched their highest since April last week, finding support from OPEC+ output curbs and unplanned outages in Libya and Nigeria.
Oil also came under pressure on Monday from the resumption of output at two of the three Libyan fields that were shut last week.