The US shale boom is connecting markets and changing the way oil and gas is bought and sold, according to BP’s trading unit.

BG Group has been loading the first cargo of LNG from its Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) facility since Dec. 28, the company said in a statement.

GAZPROM PURCHASES PARTNER INTERESTS IN SOUTH STREAM OFFSHORE ENTITY

MERRY CHRISTMAS ! HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Total SA and its partners will use a record 16 ice-breaking tankers to smash through floes en route to and from the Arctic’s biggest liquefied natural-gas development.

U.S. oil and gas companies have been an engine of growth through much of an otherwise lackluster economic expansion, providing steady employment, solid wages and fierce competition for workers across wide swaths of the country.

The Gazprom Board of Directors took notice of the information about the Company’s preliminary operating results for 2014, projected Investment Program, Budget (Financial Plan) and Cost Optimization (Reduction) Program for 2016–2017.

Rosneft and Lukoil signed a package of legally binding documents regarding Rosneft’s acquisition of 20% share in the National Oil Consortium LLC (NOC). Due to this deal the share of Rosneft in the charter capital of NOC will increase to 80%, with the remaining 20% owned by Gazprom Neft.

Rosneft announces it repaid part of a loan obtained to finance the acquisition of TNK-BP. On December, 22 The Company paid to lenders around USD 7 bln.

RN-Aero (Rosneft subsidiary) has signed a cooperation agreement with the leading Jet Fuel supplier Shell Aviation.

BP Plc is in talks to buy a direct stake in an East Siberian oil producer from OAO Rosneft, the Russian oil producer facing U.S. and European financing bans, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Over and over again, they keep insisting on their Third Energy Package, which the Russian leaders refer to as ‘a very harmful document’, and want Gazprom to unbundle its gas supplying, transporting and marketing businesses; share pipeline space with other gas producers; obey independent regulators and transmission operators; and drop manipulations with prices.

Shale gas was supposed to be Ukraine’s ticket to greater energy independence from Russia. Chevron Corp. (CVX)’s decision to pull the plug has smashed those hopes.

On December 18, Rosneft’s Board of Directors reviewed preliminary results of the Company’s performance in 2014 and approved the 2015-2016 plan.

For now it is only a distant rumble, but many oil executives and advisers believe they can hear it coming: a gusher of oil deals that is set to erupt next year.