“While the UK offshore oil and gas industry is having to adapt to the low oil price and driving greater efficiencies throughout its operations the fact is that the value of our product has more than halved," she said. "Times are really tough for this industry and for the people working in it. We will continue to see job losses as we move into 2016 and we must be thoughtful and supportive of our colleagues and their families who are being made redundant or who are at risk of being made redundant."

U.S. Rig Count is down 2 rigs from last week to 698, with oil rigs down 2 to 536, and gas rigs are unchanged from last week, at 162.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent, two of the major crude oil benchmarks, account for about 69% of the weighting in the S&P GSCI Energy index. As a result, the energy index tends to follow major price movements in the crude oil market. With sustained, high crude oil production from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United States, and Russia, global liquid fuel inventories rose significantly in 2015, resulting in crude oil prices falling to 11-year lows in December.

In July 2014, at the height of the Crimean Crisis, Ukraine imported gas from Western Europe, and particularly from Germany for $370 per 1,000 cubic metres. Earlier in the 2014, the country had paid $273 per million cubic metres for gas from Russia.

Mr. Novak said that the project could still be implemented if the European Commission develops corresponding infrastructure for natural gas transportation in Central and Eastern Europe,

For oil and gas producers, 2016 will be a year of cost-cutting, restructuring, refinancing when it is possible, and in some cases bankruptcy when it is not. Merger and acquisition activity, which was sluggish this year because of disagreements over valuations, may pick up speed.

CNPC said the entire pipeline project is expected to be completed and operational by the end of 2018. Construction of the Chinese section began in June 2015, while construction of the Russian section began in September 2014.

Egypt is obliged to pay for LNG shipments within 15 days of a shipment's unloading. Now the Egyptian authorities are looking to extend that timeframe. Egypt used to get financial support from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and probably will still get it. However, due to lower energy prices, the support now is more limited. Egypt buys six to eight LNG cargoes monthly, each worth $20-$25 million. It is now in arrears of $350 million for that energy, one source estimated.

“TAP is crucial in the diversification of gas sources in Europe through the development of the Southern Corridor from the Republic of Azerbaijan and potentially other countries,” said Carlo Malacarne, Snam’s chief executive officer.

Iran needs $100 billion to rebuild its gas industry and has met with European energy giants, Azizollah Ramezani, International Affairs director at NIGC said in June.

Совет директоров утвердил Инвестиционную программу, бюджет (финансовый план) и программу оптимизации (сокращения) затрат ПАО «Газпром» на 2016 год. В соответствии с Инвестиционной программой на 2016 год, общий объем освоения инвестиций составит 842 млрд руб.

South Pars, divided into 29 development phases, contains 40 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of natural gas. It covers an area of 9,700 square kilometres, of which 3,700 square kilometres are in Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometres are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters. The gas field is estimated to contain about 8% of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

Next year Georgia plans to increase the volume of natural gas it imports from Russia by 25.2% against 2015 up to 250.5 mcm. According to the natural gas balance for 2016 approved by the Georgian Energy Ministry, it plans to import 65.9 mcm of commercial gas from Russia. Georgia will receive 184.6 million cub.m. (down from 7.7%) from Russian gas transit to Armenia, for which Georgia gets 10% in volume.

Modi and Putin hailed what they termed a “strategic partnership” at their Kremlin meeting on Thursday and pledged to boost business ties, with the Indian leader signaling progress on defense projects to ensure his country upgrades its weapons capability.

“Gazprom has useful and precious experience in various fields of the gas industry and can provide them to the NIGC,” Shana quoted him saying.