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Brent crude futures slipped 7 cents to $84.82 a barrel by 1011
GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) fell 8 cents
to $81.91 a barrel.
Both benchmarks fell more than 1% in the previous session to
their lowest since Aug. 8.
China's sluggish economy is in focus, after retail sales,
industrial output and investment figures failed to match
expectations, fuelling concern over a deeper, longer-lasting
slowdown in growth.
This July activity data has prompted concerns that China may
struggle to meet its growth target of about 5% for the year
without more fiscal stimulus.
China's central bank made a marginal cut to interest rates after
data that highlighted intensifying pressure on the economy,
mainly from the property sector, though analysts say the cut was
too small to make a meaningful difference.
Both the OPEC+ group, comprising the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, and the International
Energy Agency (IEA) are banking on China - the world's biggest
oil importer - to galvanise crude demand over the rest of 2023.
Chinese woes and scepticism is growing and the focus is on
whether the beating heart of global and oil demand growth will
stage a convincing recovery any time soon, PVM analyst Tamas
Varga said.
Meanwhile, U.S. crude stocks dropped by about 6.2 million
barrels last week, according to market sources citing American
Petroleum Institute figures. That was a much bigger draw than
the 2.3 million drop analysts polled by Reuters expected.
U.S. government data on inventories is due later on Wednesday. [EIA/S]
The outlook in the fourth quarter will "depend on the
macroeconomic situation in China primarily, albeit it looks like
Saudi will continue to address that via their cuts, if needed",
said Rystad Energy's research director Claudio Galimberti.
Supply cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia have pushed up oil prices
over the past seven weeks.
(Reporting by Natalie Grover in London, by Arathy Somasekhar in
Houston and Trixie Yap in Singapore; editing by Muralikumar
Anantharaman and Jason Neely)
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