Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman’s investment fund said Wednesday it sent a “detailed response” to U.K. government objections to its deal to take over offshore natural-gas fields amid a period of icy relations between Moscow and the West.

Capital spending budgets are being cut back, drilling rigs idled and staff laid off. The remarkable growth of US oil production, which brought more than 1m barrels per day of additional supply on to world markets in each of the past three years, seems likely to flatten out this year.

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday approved a bigger, high-risk bailout for Ukraine, giving Kiev immediate access to $5 billion of $17.5 billion in emergency IMF credit in another bid to keep the embattled country afloat.

The US drilling rig count plunged 75 units—all on land—to settle at 1,192 rigs working during the week ended Mar. 6, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. That total is the lowest since Dec. 11, 2009, and 600 fewer units compared with this week a year ago. The count has now fallen in 14 consecutive weeks, losing 728 units during that time

The world may run on oil, but the oil industry runs on money. The US shale boom would not have been possible without a huge inflow of capital: the small to midsized companies that led the revolution raised $875bn from syndicated loans, bonds and equities in 2007-14, 83 per cent of it in debt, according to Dealogic.

Whiting Petroleum, the largest oil producer in the Bakken shale of North Dakota, has hired bankers to seek potential buyers after coming under financial pressure due to plummeting crude prices, according to people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. oil and gas sector bled away more jobs last month as sustained low oil prices forced energy producers to reduce spending, suggesting that further pain may be ahead for the struggling industry.

The United Steelworkers union (USW) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which serves as lead company for National Oil Bargaining negotiations, have agreed to return to the bargaining table in an attempt to resolve USW’s more than 5-week-long unfair labor practice strike in effect at US refineries and associated installations

Oil production in federal Gulf of Mexico expected to continue increasing

Low oil prices to hurt Canadian banks more than U.S. counterparts