President Chakrabarti welcomed Bulgaria’s recent actions to strengthen the stability of its financial sector and promote the liberalisation of the energy market. He reconfirmed the EBRD’s commitment to support these reforms with investment and technical advice.

“We see 2017-2020 as still having the potential for much higher prices. After 2020, there is a high risk that electric vehicle penetration will change the oil market forever.”

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures traded at $43.65 a barrel at 0301 GMT, down 26 cents in the Globex electronic session. Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell 25 cents to $46.34 a barrel.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $43.72 a barrel at 0145 GMT, up $0.14 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.27 to $46.12 a barrel.

The collapse of oil prices has forced Canadian and global producers to slash costs and curtail investment over the past two years. Even after a rebound from a 12-year low earlier this year, oil futures in New York are still about 60 percent down from their 2014 peak. Prices have been mostly stuck in the $40-$50 range for the past four months.

The governments of Argentina and the UK have agreed to work toward removal of restrictions on oil and gas work offshore the Falkland Islands.

Global oil demand growth is slowing at a faster pace than initially predicted.

Brent crude prices LCOc1 fell 92 cents to $47.40 a barrel by 0910 GMT (05:10 a.m. EDT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures CLc1 declined by $1.03 to $45.26 a barrel.

Energy Minister Alexander Novak told in July that oil production was expected to reach 542-544 million tonnes this year (10.85-10.90 million barrels per day), up from about 534 million tonnes in 2015.

China pumped 16.45 million tonnes (3.87 million barrels per day) of crude in August, the least since December 2009 on a daily basis and the second month of sharp decline.