Weak Demand in China Weighs on Middle East Oil Price Outlook

Things have taken a bad turn for the Middle East. Asia, by far the largest demand hub for Saudi Arabia, Iraq or the United Arab Emirates, seems to be going through the same stage of weakness that Europe and the United States were in the spring. Not buying enough, depleting crude inventories and generally expecting flat prices to drop lower before they come back. Perhaps there is no better example of this than China, a country that was supposed to lead summer demand recovery yet ended up buying the least crude this year as its maritime imports dropped…