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Despite lingering worries over oil supply and weak Chinese economic growth, oil prices reversed losses on Monday morning, with 73 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico interrupted on Sunday due to the tropical storm. Barry and Chinese data on Monday pointed to better-than-expected industrial numbers.
At 06:08 EDT, WTI crude was up 0.22% at $ 60.34, while Brent Crude traded up 0.37% to $ 66.97.
Gains were limited due to Chinese figures released earlier on Monday, showing China's economic growth in the second quarter of this year was 6.2 percent, in line with expectations, but the weakest growth in the country since then 27 years old.
China's industrial production and retail sales in June, however, distorted analysts' expectations, suggesting that the situation in this sector was not as bad as the darkest forecasts had predicted, and that growth in Oil demand could be sustained until the end of the year.
According to analysts ANZ Bank, the growth of China's crude oil imports so far this year is impressive, despite fears of a marked slowdown in economic growth and oil demand.
"We believe that additional (given) quotas for crude oil granted to private refiners should keep imports up in the second half of 2019," analysts at ANZ Bank told Reuters on Monday.
Despite China's weakest economic growth for nearly three decades, industrial data was not so bad and helped oil prices recover early Monday morning, as prices were also supported by the fact that 72.82% , or 1,376,265 bpd, of current oil Production in the Gulf of Mexico was closed Sunday following Tropical Storm Barry.
Phillips 66, which had temporarily closed its 253,600 bpd refinery, Alliance, Louisiana, before the storm, was preparing Sunday to restart Monday. Most of Louisiana's major refineries were operating normally on Sunday, officials or sources at the refinery told Reuters.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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