West Texas Intermediate crude slid from a two-week high after industrial production slowed in China, the world’s second-biggest oil-consuming country.

Prices fell as much as 0.9 percent as Chinese output grew 9.2 percent in May, compared with 9.3 percent in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. The pace was less than the 9.4 percent estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Futures also decreased as production resumed at the North Sea Buzzard oil field, the largest contributor to the Forties crude grade, a component of the Brent benchmark.

China used 9.76 million barrels a day, or 11 percent of world’s oil, in 2011, making it the second-biggest user after the U.S., which used 18.8 million barrels a day, or 21 percent, according to BP Plc (BP/)’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

U.S. crude stockpiles reached an 82-year high of 397.6 million barrels in the week ended May 24 before dropping 1.6 percent the following week, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department. Gasoline demand slid 1.5 percent in the week ended May 31.

WTI for July delivery slid 28 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $95.75 a barrel at 10:40 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was 5.8 percent below the 100-day average. Prices advanced $1.27 to $96.03 a barrel on June 7, the highest close since May 21.

Brent for July settlement dropped 35 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $104.21 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Volume was 8.6 percent below the 100-day average.

Gold prices are kept within a narrow range at the time, as today's calendar is empty on the U.S. charts. On Friday, the price of gold fell more than 2% to its lowest level in 10 days, as investors feared that the improvement in the U.S. labor market will provoke a completion bond purchases by the Federal Reserve System.

The number of employees in the U.S. economy, excluding the agriculture sector in May increased by 175,000 with growth forecast at 170,000, and the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent, the forecast of 7.5 percent.

According to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Charles Plosser, employment report showed that the reduction in government spending is not as strongly affected by the economy, as some had feared, and that the central bank should reduce the volume of buying bonds immediately. But most of the 19 Fed officials, policy makers feel the need to continue the acquisition of assets by $ 85 billion a month.

Stocks of the world's largest exchange-traded fund backed by gold (ETF) SPDR Gold Trust on Friday fell by 0.06 percent to 1.007,14 tons - the lowest level in four years.

The cost of the August gold futures on COMEX today is trading in the range of 1375.1 - 1387.7 per ounce.