Oil prices stable while offsetting Chinese growth concerns

Oil prices little changed today, Wednesday, as investors balanced the impact of fears related to the Chinese economy and expectations of tight supplies from America.

According to Reuters, Brent crude futures fell slightly by seven cents to $84.82 a barrel by 1011 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude fell eight cents to $81.91 a barrel.

Both benchmarks fell more than 1% to their lowest since Aug. 8

Data on retail sales, industrial output and investment in China all came in below expectations, stoking concerns about a deeper and longer-term slowdown in growth.

This data prompted some economists to point out the risks that China, the world’s largest oil importer, may find it difficult to achieve its growth target of about five percent for this year without more fiscal stimulus.

The OPEC + bloc and the International Energy Agency are counting on China to revive demand for crude for the remainder of this year.

US crude stocks also fell by about 6.2 million barrels last week, according to market sources based on data from the American Petroleum Institute. This was a much larger decline than the estimate of analysts polled by Reuters for a decline of 2.3 million barrels.