A Chinese holding company signed a letter of intent to purchase oil and gas assets in the Permian basin of West Texas for $1.3 billion through a limited liability partnership.

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.

U.S. Rig Count is unchanged from last week at 787, with oil rigs down 1 to 594, and gas rigs up 1 to 193.

Sending gas to Europe doesn’t make commercial sense for Iran, says Matthew Bryza, former US assistant secretary for South Caucasus and former US ambassador to Azerbaijan.

PJSC LUKOIL press office announces the completion of drilling of the exploratory well Lira-1X and the discovery of a gas field in the Lira offshore structure, which is located at the Trident block (EX-30) in the deep-sea Romanian offshore. Exploration on the EX-30 block is conducted by LUKOIL Overseas Atash BV (100-% subsidiary of PJSC LUKOIL) within the framework of the Concession Agreement with the Government of Romania of 2011. Currently LUKOIL's share in the project is 72%, while PanAtlantic Petroleum Ltd owns 18% and Societatea Nationale de Gaze Naturale Romgaz SA owns 10%.

In an expansion of their ongoing global partnership, BP and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) entered into a framework agreement on strategic cooperation covering potential shale gas exploration and production in the Sichuan Basin and future fuel retailing ventures in China and other international partnerships.

The API Director of Upstream Erik Milito released the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s decision to deny Arctic offshore development extension requests and scheduled 2016 and 2017 Arctic lease sales

Pakistan and Russia signed a major agreement to build a 1,100-km gas pipeline from Lahore to Karachi, that will take cooperation between the two Cold War-era adversaries “to a new level”.

The foreign investment arm of India's top oil explorer ONGC is targeting $10-$12 billion of oil and gas asset purchases over the next three years, including more corporate acquisitions, its managing director said.

Norwegian petroleum and other liquids production, which had been declining since 2001, increased in 2014 and will likely continue increasing in 2015. The production growth in 2014 was mainly the result of new fields coming online, but also included a small increase in output from existing fields. Production has continued to grow in the first half of 2015 and is expected to remain relatively stable over the next few years as growth from new fields balances declines from older fields.