Oil prices face pressure over slowing China

March 6 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices drifted lower early Monday after China lowered its economic growth estimate and U.S. exploration and production activity gained further ground.

Oilfield services company Baker Hughes reported slow, but steady, gains in exploration and production activity in the United States. The company's weekly rig count report serves as a rough gauge of industry confidence in a particular region and gains could signal eventual production gains.

Federal U.S. estimates early this year reversed course to show gains expected for the year. That's fueled some lingering supply-side concerns and kept crude oil prices from breaking out of the $55 per barrel range.

After growing at a rate of around 6.7 percent last year, China, the second-largest economy in the world, set a target rate of 6.5 percent for growth of gross domestic product. Speaking Monday in Beijing, He Lifeng, the head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said a focus on qualitative growth could build a "moderately prosperous society in all respects" by 2020.

The price for Brent crude oil was lower than Friday's close by 0.1 percent about a half hour before the start of trading in New York at $55.85 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for the price of oil, was off 0.23 percent at $53.20 per barrel.

Elsewhere, members of the Organization of Petroleum Countries are towing the line on production cuts aimed at offsetting some of the strains of an over-supplied market. A survey from S&P Platts found OPEC members are in near-full compliance with an agreement that established a production ceiling at 32.5 million barrels per day.

The deal went into force in January, but was brokered in November when OPEC still counted Indonesia as a member state. Platts found that, when adding what Indonesia would normally contribute to total OPEC production, the group would be above the limit established by the agreement.