South Korean companies announced plans to import more American shale gas and build new factories in the U.S. as the two countries' leaders prepare to hold summit talks in Washington where trade is expected to be a key issue.

The NYMEX July natural gas futures contract settled 1 cent higher at $3.037/MMBtu on Tuesday, as a bullish weather outlook continued to drive up prices.

Among China's LNG suppliers Australia has fared best, with imports rising 42.7 percent in the first five months to 5.39 million tonnes, almost double that of second-placed Qatar at 2.84 million tonnes.

Turkstream has been promoted by Mr Putin as a way to deepenaccess to the Turkish market, which was the second biggest for Russian natural gas last year after Germany, and to support his strategic objective to bypass Ukrainian pipelines.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt on Monday cut ties with Qatar, accusing the country of supporting extremism. Qatar denies the allegations.

Qatar and Russia have long been rivals in global gas markets. Qatar's supplies came under the spotlight in the past month after Saudi Arabia cut economic and diplomatic ties, in a move ratcheting up a wider violent and diplomatic conflict in the Middle East.

Australia is set to apply LNG export controls, aimed at securing domestic supply of gas and keeping prices of the fuel in check, from January 1, the government announced earlier this week despite industry warnings about the decision's potential impact on energy investment.

Creditor banks to India's Essar Oil approved the acquisition of the company by a group including Russia's Rosneft, two sources familiar with the matter said, removing a key hurdle to the $12.9 billion deal that has been in the works for two years.

According to Tatiana Mitrova, head of the oil and gas research department at the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there will be no need for new Russian LNG or pipeline gas to Asia until 2025.

Preliminary production figures for May 2017 show an average daily production of 1 980 000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate, which is a decrease of 128 000 barrels per day compared to April.

BP and RIL partnered in 2011 when BP acquired 30% interest in multiple oil and gas blocks in India operated by RIL, including the producing Block KGD6. RIL currently operates KGD6 with 60% interest, while BP still holds 30% and Niko Resources Ltd. has the remaining 10%.

"It is worth taking the risk at $1 billion because it opens a huge market. We are perfectly conscious of some risks. We have taken into account (sanctions) snap-backs, we have to take into account regulation changes," Pouyanne said in an interview.

At the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the July 2017 contract price fell 5¢ from $3.071/MMBtu last Wednesday to $3.020/MMBtu yesterday.

Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, and Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell, signed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2017 the Heads of Agreement to set up a joint venture.

The upward trend continues: from January through May 2017 Russian gas deliveries to France added 8.8 per cent compared to the same period of 2016.