The selloff marks a sharp shift in Wall Street sentiment from earlier in the year, when investors piled into energy-company debt and firms sold new bonds as the price of oil appeared to stage a comeback.

The falling oil and gasoline prices that for months have coincided with strong U.S. hiring have helped most Americans. But they’ve come at a painful cost for workers in the energy and mining sector: 122,300 lost jobs in the past year. Overall, U.S. employers added a robust 211,000 jobs and the unemployment rate held steady at a low 5 percent.

The US drilling rig count dropped 7 units to 737 during the week ended Dec. 4, marking its lowest point since Oct. 15, 1999.

The ability of the US with its newly found export capacity mostly based on shale gas development provides gas into the global market, he explained, for which the European market can benefit as long as the prices in Europe are attractive to a US producer.

“We're interested in seeing more interconnected markets in Europe. We obviously can deliver very flexibly to any terminal; we're not bound into delivering to just one location, as you would be with a pipeline, and what we're really interested in doing is securing new markets, developing integrated projects possibly involving power plants as well, or floating re-gas infrastructure with a power plant behind it, a business model we've operated in Chile; we're looking at doing something similar in Croatia,”

Low oil prices have hurt manufacturers that supply and service the sector

U.S. Rig Count is down 7 rigs from last week to 737, with oil rigs down 10 to 545, and gas rigs up 3 to 192.

OMV and Gazprom are two of the shareholders in the contentious Nord Stream-2 expansion project. BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, and Shell are the four other stakeholders.

Norway traditionally vies with Russia to be the EU’s top gas supplier, providing about 30 per cent of import demand. In terms of energy security, EU officials hail Norway as a model of stability compared with the political and commercial risks associated with Russia and Algeria.

“Relatively low gas prices, combined with low oil prices, have slowed drilling in the Marcellus (Shale) so production from new wells is only offsetting the decline in old wells,” said EIA lead upstream analyst Dana Van Wagener.