Russia's top oil producer Rosneft has turned to UK-certified lawyers in its fight against Ukraine-related Western sanctions which have hit the company's output and prospects for its push to tap Arctic riches.

The share-price boom at U.S. energy firms has gone bust, due to slumping global growth and tumbling crude prices.

This year's fall in energy prices is hastening the decline of big oil, as the seven Western majors sell-off assets, cut investment, return money to shareholders and shrink in size, leaving ever more output to small producers and state firms.

Poland’s ambition to achieve energy independence from Russia is being undermined by drillers giving up on the nation’s shale wells after disappointing results.

The cost of Kashagan, already the world’s most expensive oil project, is set to rise by nearly $4bn as the companies developing it are forced to replace 200km of leaking pipelines.

A World Bank arbitration tribunal on Thursday ordered Venezuela to pay Exxon Mobil Corp about $1.6 billion to compensate for oil nationalization in 2007, though state oil company PDVSA expects to eventually pay closer to $1 billion.

Sanctions against the Russian Federation, more specifically in its energy section, seem to have been gradually nullified due to a counteraction by Moscow, which as of late made significant progress on several long-standing issues that have long-term effects on the global natural gas sector.

Oil prices that have plunged to a 27-month low are inflicting damage on a Russian economy already contending with escalating sanctions from the U.S. and European Union over its role in Ukraine.

Ivory Coast will seek investors in its available offshore oil acreage, including seven new ultra-deep water blocks in the Gulf of Guinea, at a promotional event in Texas next week, a senior oil ministry official said on Tuesday.

Oil production in Russia increased by almost 0.9 percent month-on-month in September to 10.61 million barrels per day (bpd) largely because of increased output at joint ventures with foreign majors, Energy Ministry data showed on Thursday.