2014

The share-price boom at U.S. energy firms has gone bust, due to slumping global growth and tumbling crude prices.

This year's fall in energy prices is hastening the decline of big oil, as the seven Western majors sell-off assets, cut investment, return money to shareholders and shrink in size, leaving ever more output to small producers and state firms.

West Texas Intermediate extended its slump into a bear market amid speculation that rising global oil supplies will be more than enough to meet slowing demand. London’s Brent traded at the lowest price since December 2010.

European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has asked Ukraine and Russia to take part in another round of talks to try to solve a gas pricing row on Oct. 21 in Berlin, a Commission official said on Thursday.

Poland’s ambition to achieve energy independence from Russia is being undermined by drillers giving up on the nation’s shale wells after disappointing results.

Consumers in many Asian countries are missing out on the benefits of a global slide in oil prices and instead paying more at the pump as governments cut down on expensive energy subsidies.

French banking giant BNP Paribas SA has stopped offering letters of credit to finance commodities trades involving sanctioned Russian banks, according to people familiar with the matter—the latest fallout from tightening economic restrictions imposed by the West against Moscow.

The cost of Kashagan, already the world’s most expensive oil project, is set to rise by nearly $4bn as the companies developing it are forced to replace 200km of leaking pipelines.

A World Bank arbitration tribunal on Thursday ordered Venezuela to pay Exxon Mobil Corp about $1.6 billion to compensate for oil nationalization in 2007, though state oil company PDVSA expects to eventually pay closer to $1 billion.

EIA projects average U.S. household expenditures for natural gas, heating oil, electricity, and propane will decrease this winter heating season (October 1 through March 31) compared with last winter, which was 11% colder than the previous 10-year average nationally.