Deals for North Sea oilfields — which have been held back by the plummeting price of Brent crude — could soon come back on stream, as a new tax cut helps to draw in private equity investors.

Ukraine is facing existential challenges, and energy security is one of them. The country is dependent on Russia supplying most of its natural gas as well as uranium fuel for its nuclear reactors. Under these very difficult circumstances, a government with a holistic view of its strategic security and energy goals would logically develop a policy aimed at encouraging increased domestic oil and gas production. Unfortunately, Kyiv is doing the opposite.

Towns in the northern province of Groningen sit atop the continent’s biggest gas field, where the Dutch government says exploration by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. has triggered 196 earthquakes since 2013, damaging buildings and making home sales difficult. Lawmakers, seeking support in provincial elections March 18, have responded to residents’ complaints with a proposed cut in gas production, the second since December, in the hope that less output means fewer tremors.

Significantly lower crude oil prices have reduced foreign companies’ interest in developing oil and gas resources in sub-Saharan Africa nations, speakers at a Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies seminar agreed. Lower prices also could give governments some time to develop better frameworks so economic and social benefits reach their countries’ general populations, they added.

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

An independent Dutch safety panel has found that the operators of Europe’s largest natural gas field, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, as well as the Dutch government, for years ignored the dangers posed by earthquakes in the field.

Monthly average crude oil prices continued to decline during November. The average domestic crude oil first purchase price fell $7.76 (9.8 percent), to $71.07 per barrel.

Shell cuts $15 billion in spending for 2015-17

The world’s biggest energy companies are preparing to cut tens of billions of dollars from capital spending as they set out plans this week to respond to the drastic slide in oil prices.

Warming ties between China and Russia are giving a big boost to Chinese imports of Russian oil, to the chagrin of OPEC nations jockeying for a slice of China’s market.