U.S. oil and gas major ExxonMobil has asked the Russian government to reimburse taxes worth "several billion roubles" it says it overpaid on a project in the far east of Russia.

Statoil ASA plans to drill four wells in Russia with state oil company OAO Rosneft, targeting heavy oil fields, showing Norway’s biggest energy producer is deepening its involvement in the country against the backdrop of international sanctions.

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.

As most of Russia’s energy exports go to the European Union, both players are strongly interdependent. For Russia, energy resources, especially gas, are viewed as a tool to project power beyond its borders.

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.

Moscow and Beijing will sign an agreement on the pipeline shipping gas from Western Siberia to China by the end of the year, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday, adding that his government will intensify trade ties with Russia in the coming months.

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 Bulgarian Government reportedly launched a €33,000 tender for the offshore section of the South Stream project, in order to better understand some financial implications of the project.

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.

Ex-BP boss aims to build major energy industry player from scratch Lord Browne heads new oligarch-backed $10bn fund L1 which is buying up energy industry assets while price of oil is low