In 2015, LUKOIL Group total hydrocarbon production increased by 2.8 % y-o-y and reached 2.379 million boe per day. Crude oil production* increased by 3.6 % y-o-y to 100.7 million tons.

Germany consumed 5% more gas and its imports were 13% higher than in 2014. But the surprising statistic is that its 2015 exports of gas grew by 35% year-on-year to top 30bn m3.

It says that two thirds of the gas will flow towards the Central European Gas Hub in Baumgarten, Austria. “This hub offers ideal connectivity and can handle large flows to central, east, southeast and south European countries, boosting their gas markets to comparable levels of liquidity and competiveness as in northwest Europe.”

Europe and Russia are each trying to diversify—the first by getting more gas suppliers, and the second by trying to sell more gas to China and East Asia.

India is replacing China as the center of the world’s oil demand growth as its economy expands faster than any other major country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made energy security a priority for the nation, which imports 80 percent of its oil requirements.

Europe’s leaders have long been hoping that U.S. shale gas would help the bloc reduce its reliance on gas from Russia, which provides around a third of the region’s supplies. The ethane from Ineos’s shipment won’t be a substitute for Russian gas, which is mostly methane, but it will help to lower prices in the European market, said Karen Sund, partner at Norway-based Sund Energy consultancy.

“The US has sought to work with Europe to lessen Europe's dependence on Russian energy and, particularly, gas supplies to weaken Russian leverage to use that gas supply for political purposes and has enjoyed some success, and this has been a cooperative venture. Three administrations working in the same direction, many of the same assumptions and people.”

This supply growth, with ebbs and flows, is likely to continue. The Russian medium- to long-term optimism is that gas will be a growth fuel – a clean, adaptable C02-light fuel that could replace coal across the world into the 2020s.

China's total oil imports rose about 20 percent on year to the highest ever on a daily basis in February, when near 10-year low global oil prices drove buying from a group of new importers and for state and commercial stockpiling.

OAO NOVATEK announced the closing of a transaction to sell a 9.9% equity stake in the Yamal LNG project (“Project”) to China’s Silk Road Fund (“SRF”) for a payment amounting to EUR 1,087 million.