Russian gas sales on Gazprom Export's Electronic Sales Platform (ESP) surged to another new record high on Wednesday, with a colossal 406 million cu m sold in the latest auction.

McDermott has won two engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contracts from Saudi Aramco worth more than $4.5bn for the Marjan Increment Programme.

As part of its larger increment programmes for Marjan and Berri, Saudi Aramco has awarded Saipem two EPCI contracts worth more than $3.5bn.

Spot prices for August delivery to Northeast Asia are estimated to be about $4.40 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), up 10 cents from last week, trade sources said.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts Brent spot prices will average $67/b in the second half of 2019 and remain at that level in 2020. EIA expects West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average $62/b in the second half of 2019 and $63/b in 2020.

Chevron Phillips Chemical, a joint venture of Chevron and Phillips 66, will be the majority owner with a 51 percent share, with Qatar Petroleum owning 49 percent of the project. The companies expect a final investment decision no later than 2021 for the project, which has a target of starting in 2024.

The natural gas pipeline project TurkStream, which will carry Russian gas to Turkey and Europe, as well as Turkey's first nuclear power Akkuyu, currently under construction by the Russian firm Rosatom, are two prominent strategic projects.

Ukraine in January-June 2019 increased transit of natural gas through its gas transportation system (GTS) by 6.1% (by 2.591 billion cubic meters) compared to the same period of 2018, to 45.079 billion cubic meters, according to recent data from JSC Ukrtransgaz.

Demand hit a single-day record high just below 6.4 Bcf/d on July 4 and was estimated at just under that level Monday, data compiled by S&P Global Platts Analytics shows.

Saudi Aramco has awarded 34 contracts with a total value of $18 billion for the engineering, procurement and construction of the Marjan and Berri increment programs. The company plans to boost the Marjan and Berri fields’ production capacity by 550,000 barrels per day of Arabian Crude Oil and 2.5 billion standard cubic feet a day (BSCFD) of gas.

Ukraine and Russia have been in dispute over gas issues for years, which escalated after a pro-Russian leader of Ukraine was toppled in 2014.

The head of state-run energy firm Naftogaz, Andriy Kobolev, has said that Ukraine needs to increase its gas reserves by 18% this year to cover its winter needs and to guarantee transit to European consumers.

The 229 million cu m sold Thursday is about half the average daily flows of total Russian gas to Europe last month of around 464 million cu m.

Equinor ASA (OSE: EQNR, NYSE EQNR) has agreed with Lundin Petroleum AB to divest a 16 percent shareholding in Lundin Petroleum for a direct interest of 2.6 percent in the Johan Sverdrup field and a cash consideration of around USD 650 million.

China has lifted restrictions on foreign investment in its conventional oil and gas upstream and city gas distribution sectors, in an attempt to boost resource development, and setting the stage to break the monopoly of national oil companies.