* Brent futures down 0.5% in early trade, WTI off 0.4%
* China trade numbers underline global economy fears
By Seng Li Peng
SINGAPORE, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Oil prices dropped again on
Tuesday after falling heavily in the previous session, as weak
Chinese economic data for September added to lingering concerns
about the feasibility of the U.S.-China trade deal announced by
President Trump late last week.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 fell 30 cents, or 0.5%, to
$59.067 barrel by 0142 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate
(WTI) crude futures CLc1 was at $53.38 a barrel, down 21 cents
or 0.4%.
"China's exports and imports shrunk more than expected in
September, as ongoing tariffs and a slowdown in global trade
undercut demand," analysts at ANZ bank wrote in a research note.
Doubts over the agreement between Washington and Beijing,
designed to end a brutal trade war between the world's top two
economies, also kept sentiment weak, ANZ said. The U.S.-China
dispute has cast a shadow on global economic growth prospects,
and left questionmarks over future oil demand. A slide in China's exports picked up pace in September,
while imports contracted for a fifth straight month, pointing to
further weakness in the economy and underlining the need for
more stimulus as the U.S.-China trade war drags on. The impact was enough to outweigh any support that prices
might have received from geopolitical tensions surrounding the
Middle East.
On Monday President Trump imposed sanctions on Turkey
demanded the NATO ally stop a military incursion in northeast
Syria that is rapidly reshaping the battlefield of the world's
deadliest ongoing war. (Reporting Seng Li Peng
Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)