REUTERS - State oil giant Saudi Aramco will spend more than 500 billion riyals ($133 billion) on oil and gas drilling over the next decade, a senior company executive said on Monday.

GULF TIMES - HE Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada affirmed that Qatar’s large gas reserves require an expansion effort, adding this is why Qatar has decided to increase this sector’s growth by 30%.

PLATTS - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there is significant potential for energy cooperation with Qatar, after the Middle Eastern LNG giant's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani announced plans to invest Eur10 billion ($11.5 billion) in the German economy over the next five years.

MEOG - Mubadala Petroleum, Gazprom Neft and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, the Russian Federation's sovereign wealth fund) announced the establishment of a joint venture to develop oil fields in the Tomsk and Omsk regions of Western Siberia.

PLATTS - Germany's Siemens AG and Bangladesh's state-run North-West Power Generation Company Ltd Friday signed a joint development agreement to develop a 3,600 MW power plant at Payra in southern Bangladesh that will run on regasified LNG.

GAZPROM - Pursuant to Gazprom’s revised draft investment program for 2018, the overall amount of investments will stand at RUB 1,496.328 billion, which is RUB 217.498 billion more than was envisaged in the investment program approved in December 2017.

МИНЭНЕРГО РОССИИ - «В ноябре прошлого года Президентом было дано поручение разработать механизм привлечения инвестиций в модернизацию теплоэнергетики, в первую очередь, тепловых электростанций. Большая работа была проведена, и сегодня на комиссии были рассмотрены предложения по соответствующему механизму привлечения инвестиций. Для повышения эффективности нужны инвестиции, которые энергетические компании также готовы вложить, речь идет об инвестициях около 1,5 трлн рублей», - сказал Министр.

ЗАСЕДАНИЕ ПРЕЗИДЕНТСКОЙ КОМИССИИ ПО ВОПРОСАМ СТРАТЕГИИ РАЗВИТИЯ ТЭК И ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ

ARAB NEWS - The Government remains committed to the IPO of Saudi Aramco at a time of its own choosing when conditions are optimum. This timing will depend on multiple factors, including favorable market conditions, and a downstream acquisition which the Company will pursue in the next few months, as directed by its Board of Directors.

STATISTICS NORWAY - Total investments in oil and gas activity in 2019, including pipeline transportation, are estimated at NOK 165.1 billion, which is 6.2 per cent higher than estimated in the previous quarter. The estimate for 2018 is NOK 156 billion, which equals the estimate given in the previous quarter.

NORWAY'S FUND - The Government Pension Fund Global returned 1.8 percent, or 167 billion kroner, in the second quarter of 2018.

FT - The German official welcomed an agreement reached earlier this month between the Caspian littoral states — Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — on a legal framework for sharing the Caspian, the world’s largest inland body of water.

PLATTS - Japan's Mitsubishi has agreed to acquire a 25% interest in Bangladesh's Summit LNG import project, which includes a floating, storage and regasification unit, with the remaining 75% held by Summit Corporation, the Japanese LNG trader said in a statement late last week.

PLATTS - A deal between Chinese companies and Alaska's state gas corporation to build the $43 billion Alaska LNG Project appears to be on scheduled despite the trade war brewing between the US and China.

REUTERS - The LNG market will require over 200 million tonnes per year of new supply through to 2030, or roughly 25-30 mtpa per year in new capacity additions to 2025