"Russia has made huge investments in exploration, refining, and transportation of gas and holds a great share of supplying security. The country plans to increase its output to 855 billion cubic meters per year by 2035," Putin said.

Russia is a strategic partner of Iran, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said during the talks with Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak in Tehran at the third Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit on Monday."Moscow is a strategic partner of Iran," the Iranian minister was quoted by IRNA news agency.

In 2014, U.S. crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves increased to 39.9 billion barrels—an increase of 3.4 billion barrels (9.3%) from 2013. U.S. proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate have risen for six consecutive years, and exceeded 39 billion barrels for the first time since 1972. Proved reserves of U.S. total natural gas increased 34.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) to 388.8 Tcf in 2014. This increase (9.8%) boosts the national total of proved natural gas reserves to a record-high level for the second consecutive year.

“We have never seen this in the last 30 years, two consecutive years of investment decline,” the IEA’s executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, told The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of a Statoil conference. “This will have implications for the oil markets, if not tomorrow then the day after tomorrow.”

«Страны еще раз подтвердили, что роль газа будет увеличиваться и признали важность таких инструментов как долгосрочные контракты, механизмы take-or-pay и привязку к цене на нефть", - сказал Александр Новак.

Germany will strive to ensure that all this remains under the competence of the German authorities, so if we can do this then opportunities for external meddling will be limited.

U.S. Rig Count is down 10 rigs from last week to 757, with oil rigs down 10 to 564, and gas rigs unchanged at 193.

For China, the opportunity to re-negotiate existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts with Shell, which combined with BG would supply around 30 percent of its imports by 2017, comes at an ideal time because the world's top energy consumer faces a large surfeit over the next five years.

“Capital markets are effectively closed to the oil and gas industry” in Africa, Tony Hayward, former head of BP Plc and now chairman of Genel Energy Plc, said at a conference in Cape Town last month. “A decade of exploration, with billions of dollars invested and only limited commercial success.”

CAODC announces its 2016 Drilling Forecast • Projected 2016 wells drilled: 4,728—a decrease of 58% from 2014 (11,226) • Projected operating days: 56,260—a decrease of 57% from 2014 (131,021) • Rig fleet expected to contract by 62 (758 drilling rigs to 696 drilling rigs) • 57% decrease in employment from 2014 levels (-28,485 jobs)

Australia is significantly adding to global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply capacity. Two new facilities started LNG exports within the last 12 months, and 5 more projects are under construction, scheduled to come online by 2018. With this growth, Australia is expected to overtake Qatar and Malaysia to become the world's largest LNG exporter, with 11.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of liquefaction capacity by 2019.

Urals Energy PCL (AIM:UEN), the independent exploration and production company with operations in Russia, is pleased to announce the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of two private Russian companies, RK-Oil Limited (“RK”) and BVN Oil Limited (“BVN”), from Mr Ilya Glebov. These companies were formed in 2014 in order to participate in public auctions for oil exploration and production licenses in Russia’s Komi region. Following these auctions both RK and BVN hold licenses in the Komi region.

Algeria and Libya may reduce deliveries to Europe in the next two to three years because of political instability, lack of investment and contract renegotiations, according to Carlo Malacarne, CEO of Italy’s Snam, Europe’s biggest gas transmission operator by pipeline length and storage capacity. Its Italian network includes entry points for gas arriving from North Africa and Russia.

Глава Минэнерго России заверил, что несмотря на продвижение по строительству второй ветки газопровода «Северный поток», проект «Турецкий поток» по-прежнему актуален. «Есть Турция сама по себе как потребитель, и есть потребности юго-восточной Европы, Италии, которые также самодостаточны, под них можно строить инфраструктуру», - сказал Александр Новак.

"In 2016, geopolitical challenges will not go away. We have to keep pushing for diversification of energy sources," Sefcovic said, reiterating that the Commission would scrutinize whether the Nord Stream plan complied with EU rules.