Oil prices fell on Thursday on profit-taking after surging a day earlier on data pointing to crude demand recovery in the United States, the world's biggest energy consuming nation, dealers said.
Despite the upbeat US data and signs of economic recovery in China, analysts said overall crude demand remained weak.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, dropped 67 cents to $US60.87 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for August delivery retreated 97 cents to $US62.12 a barrel. The contract expires at the end of trading on Thursday.
"Crude prices pushed lower today despite positive Chinese data as market participants remain cautious, given oil demand still remains weak and a large amount of uncertainty still remains over the timing and rate of global economic recovery," said Nimit Khamar, oil market analyst at the Sucden brokerage in London.
China, the world's second-biggest energy consuming nation, said on Thursday that its economy grew 7.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, in a stunning turnaround for the Asian powerhouse that offered some hope for the rest of the world.
This put China back on track to achieve its goal of 8.0 per cent growth for the year, despite the financial crisis hitting its crucial export sector particularly hard.
Oil prices had closed with a gain of more than two US dollars on Wednesday, lifted by a drop in US crude inventories.
The Department of Energy said US crude oil reserves had sunk by 2.8 million barrels in the week ended July 10 as refineries stepped up production.
The data also showed that distillate inventories, including gasoline and diesel fuel, which had increased for months, rose less than expected.
Oil producers' cartel OPEC had forecast on Tuesday that demand for crude would rise in 2010 after two years of contraction.
Growth was expected to come mostly from developing economies such as China, India, Latin America and the Middle East.
One year ago, oil prices had struck record peaks above $US147 - but they have since collapsed in line with slumping energy demand.
On July 11, 2008 New York crude had rocketed to a record high point of $US147.27 and London Brent struck a historic peak of $US147.50 on heightened concerns about supplies.
But over the past 12 months, prices have nosedived, striking $US32 in December before clawing back some ground on economic recovery hopes.
