NEWS | Oil Tumbles Up To 6% To New Lows As China Fears Intensify Rout | Rigzone

NEWS  |  Oil Tumbles Up To 6% To New Lows As China Fears Intensify Rout  |  Rigzone: "Oil's weeks-long slump accelerated sharply on Monday with prices tumbling as much as 6 percent to fresh 6-1/2-year lows as a renewed dive in the Chinese equities market sent global financial markets into a tailspin. A near 9-percent fall in China shares roiled global markets and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,000 points in early trading. Wall Street pared losses by mid-morning, briefly easing oil's slide, but a second wave of selling re-emerged in the afternoon. Oil's biggest one-day drop in nearly two months suggested that worst-case fears over the economic outlook in China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, have eclipsed immediate signs of persistent oversupply as the main motivator. "Today's falls are not about oil market fundamentals. It's all about China," Carsten Fritsch, senior oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum. "The fear is of a hard landing and that things get out of the control of the Chinese authorities." Brent October crude fell $2.77, or 6.1 percent, to settle at $42.69 a barrel, after plunging to a contract low of $42.51, the lowest front-month price since March 2009. Prices extended losses in after-hours trading, as the U.S. S&P Index fell by more than 4 percent at one point."

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