The Saudi-Russian battle for Europe's crude oil buyers intensified this week as Swedish refiner Preem bought its first cargo of Saudi Arabian crude oil in around two decades, trading sources said.

“The efficiency of Japanese investments (alternative to those in Russia) is mostly very low. From what we know in the last 3 yeast Japanese firms faced almost 600 bln yen of write downs (around 6 bln USD) because of bad investments in projects associated with hard-to-recover hydrocarbons in US and Canada, and also because of unsuccessful projects in the North Sea. And this had to be done in a period of high oil prices! De-facto IRR for international upstream projects of INPEX by the end of 2014 was 3.1% (Wood Macikenzie estimates). This is around 4 times less than a standard revenue ratio”.

The Commission would assess it "rigorously against the European regulatory framework," it said, and the project would have to comply with environment, competition and public procurement rules.

Turkey said in February it struck a deal giving it a 10.25 percent price discount on gas from Russia's Gazprom but that accord was not signed and state pipeline operator Botas said last week it had appealed to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) after months of fruitless talks. "An agreement was clinched on the 10.25 percent, therefore we are taking that as our base level, but will seek a higher discount at international arbitration," Alaboyun said in an interview.

"If both countries agree on the discount, progress can be achieved on the Turkish Stream Natural Gas Pipeline project, which both countries will benefit from economically"

Sakhalin II is one of the most successful export projects targeting the Asian-Pacific region. The key to success lies in integration: it is managed and operated by Sakhalin Energy Company and its shareholders: Gazprom (50% and 1 share), Shell (27.5% minus 1 share), Mitsui (12.5%), Mitsubishi (10%).

"This is no new idea. A Russian-Iranian bank existed in Soviet time though it was later liquidated. All details will be discussed after a principal decision is made. For now we’ve agreed that Iran’s delegation will visit Moscow particularly for discussing all details and issues related to its location, conditions of work, and equity capital. Separate talks will be held in the nearest future when a delegation comes to Moscow," the Minister said.

France has confirmed its interest in the Nord Stream-2 project, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

The outlook of gas supply prices to Europe was adjusted upward by more than 14% to $199 per 1,000 cubic meters for 2015, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development said on Friday.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday Kremlin-controlled gas producer Gazprom has offered gas supplies to Iran under a swap arrangement, and similar oil deals were also under consideration.