China National United Oil Co., a unit of China’s biggest energy company, halted a buying spree of Middle East crude on a Singapore trading platform after a record haul last month amid oil’s slide into a bear market . The company, known as Chinaoil, didn’t purchase any cargoes today for the first time in a month on the so-called window, used to determine benchmark prices by Platts, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc., according to a Bloomberg News survey of traders. It bought 47 cargoes, equivalent to 23.5 million barrels, of Middle East crude in Oct. through the system, data from the energy-pricing company show. A Beijing-based press officer at CNPC, Chinaoil’s parent company, didn’t immediately respond to four calls to his mobile phone and three calls to his office phone. Brent prices have fallen to the lowest levels in almost four years amid signs of an expanding […]