Benchmark oil prices continued to rise on 3 September, despite Chinese factory orders data suggesting that the economic slowdown in the world’s second largest oil consumer could be getting worse. If anything, the recent run of gloomy data has boosted hopes among investors that the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank will decide in favour of further economic stimulus. Trading was limited by the closure of the Nymex exchange for a public holiday. Brent crude settled $1.21/B higher on the ICE exchange at $115.78/B, while in electronic trading WTI closed $0.67/B higher at $97.14/B.