The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Monday said that oil and gas remained part of key solutions in combating climate change. Secretary-General of the organisation, Mr Mohammad Barkindo, stated this in Vienna while speaking against the backdrop of mass mobilisation of civil society campaigns against the oil industry.

Russian gas sales on Gazprom Export's Electronic Sales Platform (ESP) surged to another new record high on Wednesday, with a colossal 406 million cu m sold in the latest auction.

Spot prices for August delivery to Northeast Asia are estimated to be about $4.40 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), up 10 cents from last week, trade sources said.

The natural gas pipeline project TurkStream, which will carry Russian gas to Turkey and Europe, as well as Turkey's first nuclear power Akkuyu, currently under construction by the Russian firm Rosatom, are two prominent strategic projects.

Ukraine in January-June 2019 increased transit of natural gas through its gas transportation system (GTS) by 6.1% (by 2.591 billion cubic meters) compared to the same period of 2018, to 45.079 billion cubic meters, according to recent data from JSC Ukrtransgaz.

Demand hit a single-day record high just below 6.4 Bcf/d on July 4 and was estimated at just under that level Monday, data compiled by S&P Global Platts Analytics shows.

Ukraine and Russia have been in dispute over gas issues for years, which escalated after a pro-Russian leader of Ukraine was toppled in 2014.

The head of state-run energy firm Naftogaz, Andriy Kobolev, has said that Ukraine needs to increase its gas reserves by 18% this year to cover its winter needs and to guarantee transit to European consumers.

The 229 million cu m sold Thursday is about half the average daily flows of total Russian gas to Europe last month of around 464 million cu m.

China has lifted restrictions on foreign investment in its conventional oil and gas upstream and city gas distribution sectors, in an attempt to boost resource development, and setting the stage to break the monopoly of national oil companies.