Putin's interest in Israeli gas is neither secret nor new. In 2012 Russia's Gazprom discussed the possible purchase of a 30% stake in Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field. In 2013 Gazprom signed a contract to purchase much of the Tamar gas field's production but the contract wasn’t approved by Israel's Energy Ministry.

Russia has been developing new pipeline projects such as South Stream, Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2. If one of them were to be realized then transit risk stemming from Ukraine would be severely minimized and Moscow would have important strategic leverage.

Russia's largest independent gas producer Novatek plans to raise further $12bn in external financing for the Yamal LNG project, said Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson.

“With this rule, the Russian government is trying to break the vicious dependence of the economy on oil via the ruble. What’s changing is that the Russian government is signaling to the market participants that the ruble will be more predictable to spur investments into the economy.”

Russia’s Gazprom PJSC, which is seeking to boost exports to its biggest market by revenue to a record this year, has said U.S. LNG can’t compete on price in Europe and American supplies to the region will be limited. Russia meets a third of European gas supply, with Germany being the biggest market.

Gas trade relations between Gazprom and private importers are one of the more important topics regarding the Turkish gas market.

Now the two sides, buyer and seller, will have to make do without the safety-net the contracts offered: high gas demand translates into high gas prices for the customers, while indexation to low oil prices would have deprived Gazprom of the upside of a temporary supply glitch or a prolonged cold winter.

Some 18 OPEC and non-OPEC countries, including Russia, had been meant to meet on Sunday morning in the Qatari capital of Doha and rubber-stamp a deal - in the making since February - to freeze output at January levels until October 2016.

"Everybody is trying to get a big stake in India--it is the biggest growing market in Asia," said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at London-based consultancy Energy Aspects.

“We remain committed to our strategic investment in Rosneft,” Scott Dean, a company spokesman, said by e-mail, adding that BP complies with all relevant European and U.S. sanctions. “In the low oil-price environment, Rosneft continues to deliver solid operational and financial performance, demonstrating the resilience of its business model.”