CT - Provisional figures published by the UK Government on Thursday show that renewable energy sources generated a record amount of electricity in 2018, increasing by 11.8% over 2017 levels, led by a record year for wind energy generation which provided 17.1% of the UK’s electricity.

WNN - The UK and the European Commission signed a contract extension today for the world’s largest fusion research facility, Joint European Torus (JET). The extension secures at least EUR100 million (USD112 million) in additional inward investment from the EU over the next two years and "brings reassurance" for the more than 500 staff at the site in Culham, near Oxford, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.

BHGE - U.S. Rig Count is down 10 rigs from last week to 1,006, with oil rigs down 8 to 816, gas rigs down 2 to 190, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 0.Canada Rig Count is down 17 rigs from last week to 88, with oil rigs down 14 to 35 and gas rigs down 3 to 53.

Oil prices rose on Friday on the back of ongoing OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, putting crude markets on track for their biggest quarterly rise since 2009.

The Danish Energy Agency has asked the Gazprom-owned developer of the planned 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany to consider a third route option, a spokesman for the agency said

Since 2014, gas sales to consumers within the country have grown by 30 per cent, gas transit has increased by 50 per cent, and gas grid coverage has risen from 22 to 30 per cent. In three years (2016–2018), a total of 669 kilometers of distribution pipelines was built, bringing natural gas to an additional 40,500 households.

Saudi Aramco announced the signing of a share purchase agreement to acquire a 70% majority stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, in a private transaction for $69.1bn.

The new facility will be used for large scale fabrication of offshore platforms and onshore/offshore modules.

U.S. BEA - The U.S. current-account deficit increased to $134.4 billion (preliminary) in the fourth quarter of 2018 from $126.6 billion (revised) in the third quarter of 2018, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The deficit was 2.6 percent of current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter, up from 2.5 percent in the third quarter.

U.S. BEA - The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $51.1 billion in January, down $8.8 billion from $59.9 billion in December,