April 2016

At an average price of $53 per barrel of oil means the world’s 50 biggest publicly traded companies in the industry can stop bleeding cash, according to oilfield consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Nabors, which owns the world’s largest fleet of onshore drilling rigs, said it has already been talking with several large customers about plans to boost work in the second half of the year if prices rise "comfortably" above $50.

Amid improving market sentiment and a weakening dollar, the World Bank is raising its 2016 forecast for crude oil prices to $41 per barrel from $37 per barrel.

Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) projects that both Canada's natural gas production and its domestic natural gas consumption will increase through the next decade. Exports of natural gas by pipeline to the United States are expected to continue to decline. The planned construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals on Canada's western coast, which would send LNG exports to Asian markets by 2019, plays a key role in maintaining Canada's overall natural gas exports.

The French oil company said on Wednesday it had made $1.6bn in adjusted net income in the first three months of the year. This marks a turnround from the previous quarter, when it made a loss of $1.8bn, but remains some way below the $2.6bn it made in the first quarter of last year.

A global crude oil deficit will develop before the end of this year, the chairman of Facts Global Energy consultancy Fereidun Fesharaki said Monday.

The International Monetary Fund said it was encouraged by the efforts of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab oil exporters to repair damage to their state finances as low crude prices slash export revenues.

The project, which includes plans to float a stake in the world's largest oil company and set up one of the world's largest government investment funds, is meant to provide a blueprint for sweeping reforms to steer the OPEC kingpin sharply away from its decades-long reliance on cheap-to-produce oil. King Salman said in a short televised announcement that the Cabinet approved the "Vision 2030" plan on Monday, and he called on Saudis to work together ensure its success.

China and Japan dispute sovereignty over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets, while in the South China Sea, Beijing is building islands on reefs to bolster its claims.

Putin's interest in Israeli gas is neither secret nor new. In 2012 Russia's Gazprom discussed the possible purchase of a 30% stake in Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field. In 2013 Gazprom signed a contract to purchase much of the Tamar gas field's production but the contract wasn’t approved by Israel's Energy Ministry.

Russia has been developing new pipeline projects such as South Stream, Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2. If one of them were to be realized then transit risk stemming from Ukraine would be severely minimized and Moscow would have important strategic leverage.