Since January, nearly $2 billion has been raised by Canadian non-oilsands producers on equity markets, but most of it has been geared to paying down debt or funding acquisitions, not for drilling new wells

Russia’s oil industry is “very resilient,” BP Plc CEO Bob Dudley said in St. Petersburg on Thursday. The nation’s resources are competitively priced and floating the currency has been helpful for costs, he said while announcing a new exploration joint-venture with Rosneft.

Igor Sechin, Rosneft CEO, said after signing: “These agreements serve as an example of full scale cooperation with BP, Rosneft’s strategic partner and largest minority shareholder. After creation of the Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC joint venture we are now broadening the geography of our cooperation and creating a precedent which allows us to pursue cooperation in partnership with leading international companies to implement upstream projects at the largest Rosneft greenfield sites in West and East Siberia.”

U.S. Rig Count is up 10 rigs from last week to 424, with oil rigs up 9 to 337, gas rigs up 1 to 86, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 1. Canadian Rig Count is up 4 rigs from last week to 69, with oil rigs down 1 to 28, gas rigs up 4 to 40, and miscellaneous rigs up 1 to 1.

Brent crude futures' front-month contract LCOc1 settled up$1.98, or 4.2 percent, at $49.17 a barrel. The front-month in U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 rose $1.77, or 3.8 percent, to settle at $47.98. It fell $1.80 in the previous session.

Crude oil prices rallied to a 2016 high above $51/bbl in June, stoked by continuing outages in Nigeria and Canada as well as a steady decline in US oil production. May marked the third straight month of average price rises in Brent and WTI futures.

The oil and gas industry will cut $1 trillion from planned spending on exploration and development because of the slump in prices, leading to slower growth in production.

We need tax policies that encourage investment in America’s abundant energy resources. It is because of our industry’s investments that the U.S. is the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world while leading other countries in lowering carbon and other emissions. The industry also invests billions in low- and zero-emissions technologies to continue to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. This model has proven that we can protect the environment, grow our economy, and save consumers on average $1300 in energy costs per year.

Among the major shareholders of Yamal LNG are local gas producer Novatek (50.1%), Total (20%) and CNPC (20%). The Silk Road Fund has become the second Chinese strategic investor in the project, after China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) provided $5 B of investment for Yamal LNG. Under the terms of the agreement, the Silk Road Fund will provide approximately $800 MM for the implementation of the project over the next several years.

Venezuela has borrowed over $50 billion from China under the financing arrangement created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2007, in which a portion of its crude and fuel sales to the world's second-biggest economy are used to pay down loans.