Britain's North Sea oil and gas sector has shed more than 5,000 jobs since late last year, the country's new Oil and Gas Authority said on Monday, putting an official figure on job losses resulting from a year-long decline in oil prices.

Russia and China continue walking hand in hand toward stronger energy cooperation, with several Russian companies - Gazprom, Rosneft and Novatek - signing documents with Chinese partners over the last hours.

The October crude oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 84¢ to $46.25/bbl on Sept. 2 while the November crude oil contract also climbed 84¢ to $46.86/bbl. The natural gas contract for October declined 5¢ to a rounded $2.65/MMbtu. The Henry Hub, La., gas price dropped 3¢ to $2.71/MMbtu. The October ICE contract for Brent crude climbed 94¢ to settle at $50.50/bbl, and the November contract gained 93¢ to $51.29/bbl. The ICE gas oil contract for September dropped $10.25 to $471.50/tonne. The average price for the OPEC basket of 12 benchmark crudes declined $2.24 to $45.53/bbl on Sept. 2.

Buying crude oil from Russia allows China to ensure security of supply as cooperation between the two countries is likely "to gain new momentum," China National Petroleum Corp. Chairman Wang Yilin said Friday.

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.

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.

Although unrestricted exports of U.S. crude oil would leave global crude prices either unchanged or falling slightly compared to parallel cases that maintain current restrictions on crude oil exports, other factors affecting global supply and demand will largely determine whether global crude prices remain close to their current level, as in EIA's Low Oil Price case, or rise along a path closer to the Reference case trajectory. Global price drivers, as well as resource and technology outcomes, will affect growth in U.S. crude oil production regardless of decisions about future U.S. crude oil export policies.

After winning a key platform construction contract from Statoil in June, Norway’s Kvaerner is reportedly working to enter into the LNG business with floating near-shore liquefaction barges designed for operations in the Arctic. Doing so, Kvaerner could increase its clout in Russia.

‘Magadanmorneftegaz, Lisyanskmorneftegaz (joint ventures of Rosneft and Statoil) and China Oilfield Services Limited (COSL) signed a contract to drill two exploration wells in 2016. The wells will be drilled in the Magadan-1 and Lisyansky areas of the Okhotsk Sea’ Rosneft wrote on Wednesday.

China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, has already begun to loosen its grip on the physical oil sector this year by granting quotas for imported crude to privately-owned refiners for the first time, surprising market participants with the speed of reform.