Benchmark futures settled 3.9% higher after another session of sharp price moves. Searing temperatures in parts of the region and global competition for liquefied natural gas continue to provide upward pressure — even as flows from Norway, Europe’s top supplier, return to levels last seen in April.

The central bank still expects a current account surplus of $47 billion this year and $38 billion in 2024. On Tuesday, it said in a statement that Russia’s worsening trade balance was caused by a decrease in export volumes as well as the decline in prices mainly for energy exports.

About 40% of new global LNG output will come from Qatar by 2029, said Minister of Energy Saad al-Kaabi at the LNG 2023 conference.

The Worldwide Rig Count for June was 1,800, up 17 from the 1,783 counted in May 2023, and up 94, from the 1,706 counted in June 2022.

By 2021, wind, solar, and natural gas provided 48 percent of Germany’s electricity, and provided most of the electricity consumed in Italy (63%), the UK (64%), and the Netherlands (78%).

In 2021, Russia pumped about 150 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas to Europe — more than enough to satisfy the combined annual consumption of Germany, France and Austria. Europe represented two-thirds of the country’s gas exports including flows of liquified natural gas.

“Norway is the only net exporter of oil and gas in Europe, and by implementing these projects we ensure new production from the latter half of the 2020s, so that we can maintain high Norwegian deliveries,”

Under the terms of the deal announced on Friday, Eni will acquire Neptune for $2.6bn, while Vår Energi — Eni’s Norwegian listed subsidiary — will acquire the company’s operations in Norway for $2.3bn.

The two players intend to invest up to 4 billion euros or almost $4.4 billion for the development phase of the project to be spent mostly during 2024-2026, which will enable about 100 bcm of natural gas to be brought on stream, turning Romania into – what OMV Petrom deems to be – the largest gas producer in the EU and a net natural gas exporter.

Preliminary production figures for May 2023 show an average daily production of 1 991 000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate.