Maersk Oil has announced its intention to implement workforce reductions amounting to 10-12% of roles across its business.

BP reported operating cash flow for 3Q 2015 was $5.2 billion bringing the total for the first nine months of the year to $13.3 billion. Organic capital expenditure over the nine month period was $13.2 billion. At the end of the quarter, net debt was $25.6 billion representing a gearing level of 20.0%, including approximately 1% arising from the agreements in principle to settle with the United States government and Gulf states.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday Kremlin-controlled gas producer Gazprom has offered gas supplies to Iran under a swap arrangement, and similar oil deals were also under consideration.

“Saudi Arabia actually triggered the price drop when it decided to defend its market share. The number of shale oil wells in North America has declined ever since, and probably won’t start to increase until the price hits $60[/bbl],”

U.S. Rig Count is unchanged from last week at 787, with oil rigs down 1 to 594, and gas rigs up 1 to 193.

PJSC LUKOIL press office announces the completion of drilling of the exploratory well Lira-1X and the discovery of a gas field in the Lira offshore structure, which is located at the Trident block (EX-30) in the deep-sea Romanian offshore. Exploration on the EX-30 block is conducted by LUKOIL Overseas Atash BV (100-% subsidiary of PJSC LUKOIL) within the framework of the Concession Agreement with the Government of Romania of 2011. Currently LUKOIL's share in the project is 72%, while PanAtlantic Petroleum Ltd owns 18% and Societatea Nationale de Gaze Naturale Romgaz SA owns 10%.

The plan appears to be working. Oil remains 33 percent lower than when OPEC revealed its strategy on Nov. 27, trading for $48.38 a barrel at 10:13 a.m. in London Wednesday. U.S. crude production has retreated about 500,000 barrels a day from the three-decade peak reached in June to 9.1 million a day in the week to Oct. 9, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan all have safety cushions of income from oil and gas to help in the hard times of benchmark Brent crude under $50 a barrel.

Russia supplied a record amount of crude oil to China in September, surpassing Saudi Arabia for the second time as the top seller to the Asian giant, customs data showed, boosted by demand from independent refiners.

The API Director of Upstream Erik Milito released the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s decision to deny Arctic offshore development extension requests and scheduled 2016 and 2017 Arctic lease sales