Benchmark oil for May delivery was down 86 cents to $87.85 per barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped $2.58, or 2.8 percent, to finish at $88.71 a barrel on Monday after hitting $87.86 earlier in the session. Crude has dropped nearly 10 percent this month.
The Chinese government on Monday said growth in the world's second-largest economy slowed to 7.7 percent in the first quarter from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of last year. Growth was expected to accelerate slightly to 8 percent. Analysts have warned that China's recovery from its deepest slump since the 2008 global crisis is weak.
That slowdown, combined with weak U.S. employment and manufacturing, suggests that demand won't be strong enough to absorb the ample supplies on the world market.
"This isn't a fall just because the global economy is shifting down, this is about a world that has enough oil," said Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions in a market commentary.
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