Oil production in federal Gulf of Mexico expected to continue increasing

“Why do you want to rock the markets? The markets are calm. Demand is growing,” al-Naimi told reporters in Jazan, Saudi Arabia.

Exxon Mobil Corp said spending will decline about 11 percent this year to around $34 billion due to plunging oil prices, according to a regulatory filing this week.

Investment by British companies slowed in the final quarter of 2014, official data showed Thursday, as the fall in oil prices drove the North Sea extraction industry to cut down spending on infrastructure.

The Scandinavian country is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, thanks to 40 years of North Sea oil production. The global financial crisis barely registered amid decades of almost nonstop growth.

Low oil prices to hurt Canadian banks more than U.S. counterparts

Natural gas prices are surging in their biggest move in a week as severely cold weather boosts demand and pushes prices to a three-week high.

EOG Resources, the largest US shale oil producer, expects its rapid production growth of recent years to come to a halt in 2015, in the starkest sign yet of how weak crude prices are hitting the industry. The company told analysts on a call on Thursday that it was “intentionally choosing returns over growth”.

Italy's Eni raised its dividend on Wednesday despite a slump in fourth-quarter profits and like its rivals pledged to cut investment this year in the face of lower oil prices.

Trade unionists have warned they are ready to ballot on industrial action after companies including US-based groups Apache and Marathon , Talisman Sinopec and Canadian Natural Resources requested the move to a more demanding shift pattern.