U.S. Rig Count is down 367 rigs from last year's count of 864, with oil rigs down 255, gas rigs down 114, and miscellaneous rigs up 2. Canadian Rig Count is down 50 rigs from last year's count of 187, with oil rigs down 1, and gas rigs down 49.

"Я думаю, что, на самом деле, с точки зрения экономической целесообразности и логики, было бы правильно найти какой-то компромисс, - сказал Путин в интервью агентству Блумберг в четверг во Владивостоке. - Мы считаем, что это для мировой энергетики правильное решение."

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $43.35 a barrel at 0358 GMT, up $0.19 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.22 to $45.67 a barrel. Week-to-date, both benchmarks were last down by around 9%, the biggest slump since the week of January 10 when prices dropped 11%.

The country is able to pump as much as 12.5 million barrels a day of oil, he said in comments broadcast during an official visit to buyers in Asia, its biggest market, including China.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Jawad Kadhim Al Abadi and his Kurdish counterpart, Nechirvan Barzani, have agreed to split the proposed export volume of 150,000 bopd from Kirkuk’s Baba Gorgor and Khabbaz fields between them. On Tuesday, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw also claimed an agreement on Kirkuk oil had been reached.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $46.20 a barrel at 0122 GMT, down $0.15 in the Globex electronic session, the lowest intraday level since Aug 12. October Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.02 to $48.35 a barrel.

“We support freezing oil production by OPEC due to the sharp decline of oil prices,” Mr. Abadi said at a news conference, saying it would help government-salaried oil-industry workers.

LetterOne, Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's investment vehicle, is looking at acquisitions in renewable energy and oil assets in the North Sea outside of Britain, its executive chairman John Browne told.

К 9.13 МСК фьючерсы на нефть Brent торговались по $49,39 за баррель, на 0,26 процента выше предыдущего закрытия. Фьючерсы на американскую марку WTI повысились на 0,34 процента до $47,14 за баррель.

With oil prices down by more than half since the price collapse two years ago, drillers have cut their exploration budgets to the bone. The result: Just 2.7 billion barrels of new supply was discovered in 2015, the smallest amount since 1947. This year, drillers found just 736 million barrels of conventional crude as of the end of last month.