Dubai Shares Lead Gulf Declines as Oil Rout Extends Into 2015

Despite lower crude oil prices, U.S. crude oil production expected to grow in 2015

Last year was an ugly one for the U.S. energy sector, and while the first trading day of 2015 pointed to continued weakness in oil, investors are starting to look to when the sector might start to recover.

Ali al-Naimi, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia, was in no mood to address reporters at Opec’s November meeting, refusing to offer more than a few words after the cartel decided to hold output at 30m barrels a day.

Turkey is on its way to becoming the main hub for energy in Europe due to the recent introduction of the Turk Stream in place of South Stream. The elevation of the country's role became feasible after a series of major infrastructure projects that will certainly make Turkey the corridor for the supply of gas into the EU for the coming decades.

U.S. oil and gas companies have been an engine of growth through much of an otherwise lackluster economic expansion, providing steady employment, solid wages and fierce competition for workers across wide swaths of the country.

Saudi Arabia and OPEC would find it “difficult, if not impossible” to give up market share by cutting crude production, the country’s oil minister said.

U.S. oil drillers pulled rigs this week as crude traded below $60 a barrel for the seventh straight day.

Crude prices surged from the lowest closing levels since May 2009 as comments from Saudi Arabia’s oil minister yesterday added to the most volatile market in three years.

America’s oil and gas boom was enabled by a huge pile of cheap financing.