CHINA’S installed solar power capacity surged over the first half year amid shrinking costs and government policies. Over the first six months, 23.6 gigawatts of solar power were installed, 34.2 percent higher from a year ago, UBS said yesterday, adding that it was “far more than expected as most domestic analysts predicted at the beginning of the year that only 20-25 gigawatts would be added for the whole year.”

API announced that estimated total wells drilled and completed in the second quarter of 2017 increased 62 percent compared to the second quarter of 2016. This includes a 41 percent increase in estimated development gas well completions and a dramatic 81 percent increase in total estimated oil well completions from year-ago levels. Total estimated oil well completions also increased 19 percent from the first quarter of 2017. Growing well completion figures could lead to an increase in U.S. oil production, which rose 62 percent from 2010 to 2016, and U.S. natural gas production which, also increased 26 percent during the same time.

From 2012 through the end of 2015, debt was a significant source of capital for the producers included in the analysis, with the addition of a cumulative $55.3 billion in net debt. Since the beginning of 2016, however, these producers have reduced debt by $1.4 billion. The combination of higher equity and lower debt has resulted in the long-term debt-to-equity ratio, a measure of financial leverage, declining from 88% to 80% for the group of companies as a whole between the first quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017.

Brent crude oil prices are forecast to average $51/b in 2017 and $52/b in 2018. Average West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices are forecast to be $2/b lower than the Brent price in both 2017 and 2018. Henry Hub natural gas spot prices are forecast to average $3.10 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2017 and $3.40/MMBtu in 2018.

"Russia is among the leading energy countries today. We see colossal unrealized potential for cooperation, for investment -- we will continue working on implementing it with all the interested parties," Novak said.

Total energy investment worldwide in 2016 was just over $1.7 trillion, accounting for 2.2% of global GDP. Investment was down by 12% compared to IEA’s revised 2015 energy investment estimate of $1.9 trillion.

“Saudi Aramco plans to invest more than $300 billion over the coming decade to reinforce our preeminent position in oil, maintain our spare oil production capacity and pursue a large exploration and production program centered on conventional and unconventional gas resources.”

“The current period of growth should be used as an opportunity: to further safeguard the financial sector--by building up capital buffers and strengthening corporate and bank balance sheets; to address the issue of stagnant real wages--which can undermine the recovery and fuel discontent; and to confront the problem of excessive current account imbalances--with both surplus and deficit countries playing their part."

According to the Supplementary Agreement, gas supplies to China via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline will commence in December 2019.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and other energy companies have joined President Donald Trump in expressing concerns over a bill to toughen sanctions on Russia, arguing that it could shut down oil and gas projects around the world that involve Russian partners.

General Electric Co. closed its deal to combine its long-suffering energy business with Baker Hughes Inc. on Monday, creating one of the largest companies in the oil-field services industry.

Spain’s Repsol has agreed to establish a joint venture with Russian oil company Gazprom Neft, in the latest move by a European oil and gas company to deepen co-operation with Russia despite western sanctions targeting the country’s energy sector.

The Indian consortium led by the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is willing to spend as much as $11bn to develop the giant Iranian natural gas field it discovered in 2008.

Russia’s state-controlled oil company is in discussions with Iraqi Kurdistan over helping it develop oilfields in disputed territory at the heart of tensions with Baghdad, in a move that pitches Moscow into one of Iraq’s oldest faultlines.

Germany raised the proportion of its power produced by renewable energy to 35 percent in the first half of 2017 from 33 percent the previous year, according to the BEE renewable energy association.