Crude futures settle lower

Oil prices fell on Monday.

The West Texas Intermediate for March delivery dropped 3.07 U.S. dollars, or 4.71 percent, to settle at 62.14 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for April delivery decreased by 3.02 U.S. dollars, or 4.36 percent, to settle at 66.3 U.S. dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.