PLATTS - Russia is committed to its OPEC pact with Saudi Arabia and will continue supplying Europe energy despite tensions with the West after US-led strikes on Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, said Vladimir Putin's spokesman.

PLATTS - The EU's main challenge is in natural gas, as 76% of the EU's gas imports came from just Norway and Russia in 2016,

PLATTS - "It cannot be the case that Nord Steam 2 means that Ukraine no longer has any significance in transiting [Russian] gas," Merkel said after a meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.

PLATTS - Russian flows of natural gas into Germany and Slovakia combined rose above 400 million cu m/d in each of the final three days of Week 14 for the first time on almost five months as Brotherhood flows increased, data from S&P Global Platts Analytics showed.

STATOIL - Statoil has awarded drilling contracts to Archer, KCA Deutag and Odfjell Drilling for drilling, completion, intervention services, plugging, maintenance and modifications on 18 of Statoil’s fixed platforms.

OGJ - “It’s at a critical point; $150 billion of new infrastructure will be needed domestically. With all the growth in the Permian, there’s not capacity to ship gas to Louisiana,” Hochstein said. “If governments in both the US and Europe aren’t willing to put infrastructure in place, real progress won’t be made.”

BLOOMBERG - “Should the statements become a reality regarding alternative sources for gas instead of Russia, that will damage first and foremost the consumers,” Novak said in a Bloomberg television interview in Moscow. “Should any company or country opt for another supplier, I don’t think that condition will be that preferential and beneficial for them."

API - Led by gasoline and seasonal demand for heating fuels, U.S. petroleum demand hit 20.3 million barrels per day (MBD) in February. Demand was up by more than a million barrels per day from February of last year, nearing record highs not seen for more than a decade.

PLATTS - But the dispute erupted again last week after the court ruled in Naftogaz’s favor on the transit element of the case, awarding Naftogaz $4.6 billion in compensation for Gazprom’s underuse of its transit network. The net award to Naftogaz was $2.6 billion across the entire case after the court previously awarded Gazprom a little over $2 billion in the supply ruling.

WNN - A consortium led by Westinghouse Electric Company has completed an EU-funded project aimed at diversifying the supply of fuel to Russian-built VVER-440 reactors in Europe.