Cnooc Ltd., China’s biggest offshore oil and gas explorer, posted a 56 percent decline in profit for the first half of this year.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the KGB, is holding up Schlumberger Ltd.’s acquisition of a 46 percent stake in Eurasia Drilling Co., according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Moody’s Investors Service on Monday cut the credit rating of Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. to one notch above speculative grade, citing the oil-sands producer’s “elevated leverage” as a result of lower crude oil prices.

Iraq has paid foreign oil companies $9 billion in remaining arrears for 2014 and was paying outstanding fees for 2015 in stages until the beginning of next year, its oil minister said.

The Russian government has decided not to fund four out of five Rosneft projects for which the oil company had requested financing from the sovereign wealth fund, the economy minister said on Monday.

PJSC LUKOIL closed a deal to sell its 50% share in Caspian Investments Resources Ltd. to China-based Sinopec. The required permits from the state authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan were acquired in late July 2015.

Chevron has started to eliminate jobs at its Covington office as part of global layoffs sparked by low oil and gas prices prices. The company has not disclosed how deep the cuts will be.

Russia boosted natural gas supplies to Germany by almost 50% in the second quarter as prices plunged, while the world’s largest natural gas exporter struggled with weaker demand from its former Soviet allies.

During a visit to the West Qurna II oilfield in Basra, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi reiterated his government’s commitment to ensuring the security of the southern oilfields and their workers. He met with senior management of the Russian operator Lukoil, following protests by locals demanding jobs.

ERIELL, an international oilfield service group, has signed a contract with LUKOIL Middle East for drilling of 25 producing wells at the West Qurna-2 field in Iraq.

Last month, the oil giant revealed it would cut about 950 jobs in Houston, plus 500 jobs at its San Ramon headquarters, 50 international jobs and 600 contractor jobs.

The Obama administration granted Royal Dutch Shell final clearance on Monday to resume drilling for oil and gas in the environmentally fragile Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012, a move green groups vowed to fight.

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has entered into an agreement to acquire Schlumberger Business Consulting (SBC), the management consulting unit of Schlumberger, a global leader in oilfield services.

A company of the Rosneft Group and a subsidiary of Trican Well Service Ltd. signed a framework agreement and ancillary documents, pursuant to which a Rosneft subsidiary agreed to acquire a 100% shareholding in Trican Well Service LLC, which provides high-quality pressure pumping services focused on enhancement of production within the conventional oil and gas industry in Russia.

India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp.(ONGC) is reportedly negotiating with Russia’s Rosneft to purchase a share of the Vankor oil field in East Siberia, indicating that the increase in production wanted by the Russian company could come hand in hand with stronger ties with foreign companies.