Price movements
Brent crude futures fell about 4 percent to $74.46 a barrel by 13:42 GMT.
US West Texas Intermediate crude, which had no settlement on Monday due to the US Labor Day holiday, lost 3.40 percent to $71 a barrel.
“The weaker-than-expected Chinese manufacturing PMI over the weekend likely exacerbated concerns about the performance of the Chinese economy,” said Charalambos Pissouros, chief investment analyst at brokerage XM.
“Libya and Middle East news is keeping prices at a minimum, leaving the door open for further recovery in the foreseeable future,” he added.
China on Monday reported its first drop in new export orders in eight months in July, and said new home prices in August grew at the weakest pace this year.
Oil exports from key Libyan ports remain halted and production remains low across the country as rival political factions continue to compete for control of the central bank and oil revenues, six engineers told Reuters.
Upside support is limited so far due to major production disruptions in Libya and uncertainty over how long those outages might last, said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS.
Libya’s National Oil Corporation also declared force majeure on the El Feel oil field as of yesterday.
Total production fell to just over 591,000 barrels per day (bpd) by Aug. 28 from about 959,000 bpd on Aug. 26, the National Oil Corporation said.
Production reached about 1.28 million barrels per day on July 20.
Eight countries in the OPEC+ alliance, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and partners, are set to increase output by 180,000 barrels per day in October, a plan that industry sources said would likely go ahead regardless of demand concerns.
Concerns about supplies were exacerbated after two oil tankers were attacked yesterday in the Red Sea off Yemen, although they did not suffer major damage.
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