December 2014

Over and over again, they keep insisting on their Third Energy Package, which the Russian leaders refer to as ‘a very harmful document’, and want Gazprom to unbundle its gas supplying, transporting and marketing businesses; share pipeline space with other gas producers; obey independent regulators and transmission operators; and drop manipulations with prices.

Shale gas was supposed to be Ukraine’s ticket to greater energy independence from Russia. Chevron Corp. (CVX)’s decision to pull the plug has smashed those hopes.

Israel made another discovery off its coast. The newly discovered field, Royee, may hold up to 3.2 Tcf of natural gas according to a statement made by the Israeli partners in the field Ratio and Israel Opportunity who hold respectively 70%, and 10% stakes.

America’s oil and gas boom was enabled by a huge pile of cheap financing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced new Western sanctions against Ukraine's Crimea region on Saturday as a "collective punishment" on local residents who voted in a referendum last March to join Russia.

On December 18, Rosneft’s Board of Directors reviewed preliminary results of the Company’s performance in 2014 and approved the 2015-2016 plan.

The IEA Oil Market Report for December cut the outlook for 2015 global oil demand growth by 230 000 barrels per day (230 kb/d) to 0.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) on lower expectations for the Former Soviet Union and other oil‐exporting countries.

For now it is only a distant rumble, but many oil executives and advisers believe they can hear it coming: a gusher of oil deals that is set to erupt next year.

Turmoil gripped global foreign exchange markets on Tuesday, driving investors to the safety of the yen and the Swiss franc as Russia's rouble went into a tailspin and oil prices fell below $60 a barrel.

OPEC Gulf members and crisis-hit producer Russia held the line on resisting oil output cuts, a message that helped send oil to a fresh five-year low on Tuesday.