Shares of oil drillers Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY), Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN), and Diamondback Energy (NASDAQ: FANG) were falling more than the market on Monday. After each stock fell 5% in early trading, they recovered to declines of 2.4%, 3.5%, and 2.6%, respectively, as of 11:30 a.m. ET today.

The volatile energy sector got a double whammy of bad news this morning, as recent economic data out of both China and a part of the U.S. disappointed. And some believe a nuclear deal with Iran will happen soon, which would bring even more barrels onto the global market. As a result, oil prices fell some 4%, and are now lower than they were prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday morning, China's industrial production figures for the month of July rose 3.8%, well below economists' expectations of 4.5%. China has a goal of reaching 5.5% economic growth this year, but with the first half of the year coming in far below that, the country would have to do more than 5.5% to reach that goal. Officials in China have walked back on that rhetoric recently, and the situation doesn't look like it will improve very much, as long as officials continue to implement the country's "zero COVID" policies.

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Source Fool.com