ConocoPhillips is among energy companies considering asset sales amid depressed oil prices, as it markets gas-producing properties that account for about 20% of its production in Western Canada. Whiting Petroleum has hired a bank to explore a sale of the company, people familiar with the matter said last week. The company is selling oil and gas processing assets in North Dakota, Bloomberg News reported in February.

U.S. crude oil production (including lease condensate) increased during 2014 by 1.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) to 8.7 million bbl/d, the largest volume increase since recordkeeping began in 1900. On a percentage basis, output in 2014 increased by 16.2%, the highest growth rate since 1940. Most of the increase during 2014 came from tight oil plays in North Dakota, Texas, and New Mexico where hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling were used to produce oil from shale formations.

The U.S. should immediately begin a push to exploit its enormous trove of oil in the Arctic waters off of Alaska, or risk a renewed reliance on imported oil in the future, an Energy Department advisory council says in a study submitted Friday.

Based on financial statements from selected international oil and natural gas companies, spending on upstream investments was 12% lower in fourth-quarter 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. Upstream spending on exploration and development typically accounts for the bulk of these companies' investment expenditures.

Oil prices should stabilise in the second half of this year and rise in 2016 and 2017 as consumers respond to a period of much cheaper fuel, a Reuters poll of analysts showed on Monday.

Oil markets remained volatile Mar. 24 while analysts anticipated a weekly government inventory report showing another climb in US oil and product supplies. US light, sweet crude prices edged up on Mar. 24 to remain under $48/bbl while Brent prices fell modestly to settle at above $55/bbl.

China's apparent oil demand in February contracted 1% year over year to 40.7 million metric tons (mt), or an average 10.66 million barrels per day (b/d), according to a just-released Platts analysis of Chinese government data.

France’s Total completed the sale of its non-operated stake in onshore Nigeria oil mining lease (OML) 29 to Nigeria’s Aiteo Eastern E&P on Monday for $569 million.

India has bought the first oil for its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), trade sources said on Monday, marking the start of a round of purchases by the world's fourth-biggest oil consumer to build up emergency stockpiles.

On 26 March, the Solitaire pipe-laying vessel started on the first stage of the Polarled installation project. The 482-kilometre long pipeline will transport gas from the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea to Nyhamna in western Norway.