Russia can increase its oil production to as much as 700 million tonnes of oil per year (14 million barrels of oil per day) and export 300 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually, Rosneft Chief Executive Igor Sechin said on Friday.

German chemicals group BASF and Gazprom agreed to revive a deal that collapsed in late 2014 to swap gas assets that will see BASF exit gas trading and storage and the Russian energy giant expanding into Western Europe, BASF said on Friday.

Oil prices fell more than 7 percent on concerns about global demand for petroleum, reversing a three-day rally that had pushed U.S. crude up 27.5 percent.

German Ministry of Finance informed on 30 July that the Minister Wolfgang Schäuble would like to deprive the European Commission of part of its powers in two fields, namely antitrust proceedings and, currently particularly important for Germans, enforcing compliance with the budgetary discipline by the member states.

The offshore development of the largest new field discovered in the UK North Sea for a decade has been approved by the UK Oil & Gas Authority. The Maersk Oil operated high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) Culzean field in the UK Central North Sea is expected to produce enough gas to meet 5% of total UK demand at peak production in 2020/21. Culzean is also the largest gas field sanctioned since East Brae in 1990.

Eni has made a world class supergiant gas discovery at its Zohr Prospect, in the deep waters of Egypt. The discovery could hold a potential of 30 trillion cubic feet of lean gas in place covering an area of about 100 square kilometres.

Ukraine has asked Russia to reduce the cost it charges the country for gas as well as write-off loans Russia has given it.

U.S. Rig Count is down 8 rigs from last week to 877, with oil rigs up 1 at 675, gas rigs down 9 to 202, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 0.

Bulgaria’s Cabinet was preparing to seek damages for the idled properties that were due to host infrastructure for the now-abandoned South Stream gas pipeline, with the government approving on August 26 the methodology for calculating such damages.

In the first half of 2015, sales revenues were $51,294 million (-30.6% y-o-y). Net income attributable to LUKOIL decreased by 58.9% y-o-y to $1,695 million, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization) decreased by 32.4% y-o-y to $6,379 million. In the first half of 2015, our financial results were affected by a sharp decrease in the hydrocarbon prices and non-cash write-off in the amount of $324 million.