Shell says a fire has forced it to close a key oil pipeline feeding Nigeria's strategic Bonny Export Terminal, which militants attacked last week.

The deal, worth about $2.02 billion, was approved by the cabinet Wednesday, said an official, who didn’t wish to be named. The cabinet also approved another deal worth $1.24 billion reached by the three companies earlier this year to acquire a 29.9% stake in Russia’s Taas-Yuryakh oil field.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that oil services company Weatherford International has agreed to pay a $140 million penalty to settle charges that it inflated earnings by using deceptive income tax accounting. Two of the company’s senior accounting executives at the time have agreed to settle charges that they were behind the scheme.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude had fallen 38 cents to $45.55 a barrel by 0103 GMT, after rising $1.45, or 3.3 percent, in the previous session. Brent crude futures slipped 43 cents to $46.91 a barrel after closing up $1.46, or 3.2 percent.

Speaking to Shana while departing Tehran for Algiers to attend the International Energy Forum (IEF) to be held Tuesday and Wednesday in Algiers, Zangeneh said the current market conditions are not favorable for crude oil producers and consumers in the mid- and long terms.

"Saudi Aramco is forecast to spend around $334 billion. This will be spent on material and services to support service facilities, infrastructure projects, drilling and maintain (oil) potential projects, unconventional resources both in the exploration phase and development and several other projects,"

Top Russian producer Rosneft expects the share of hard-to-recover oil production to rise to 11 percent of its total crude output by 2020, from 7 percent this year. Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of state gas producer Gazprom, is raising its share of output of hard-to-recover oil by tapping more reserves at the Messoyakha project and other assets.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 73 cents to $46.62 a barrel by 1052 GMT, having rallied from a session low of $45.74, while U.S. crude prices CLc1 rose 54 cents to $45.02 a barrel.

“While the oil market has recovered from its most severe period, it’s still weak,” Nasser said.

“The kingdom is looking for consensus among oil producers to reach a credible arrangement for stabilising oil markets,” a Saudi official said on Friday. “We are looking at different scenarios and options to reaching this goal.”

Russia's oil taxes are already among the highest in the world.

Основной темой встречи стала реализация достигнутых «на полях» Восточного экономического форума Президентом Российской Федерации Владимиром Путиным и Премьер-министром Японии Синдзо Абэ договоренностей о расширении двухстороннего сотрудничества, в том числе в сфере энергетики.

“We expect global spending in the oil and gas sector will reach its nadir in 2016 , returning to growth in 2017,” Christopher Haines, BMI’s head of oil and gas research, said in the report. “For now, we see stronger growth in capital expenditure in 2018 , as better forecast oil prices are building confidence behind spending outlooks.”

The $45bn complex pipeline project running from Azerbaijan to Italy and consisting of four mega projects – Shah Deniz 2, South Caucasus Pipeline expansion (SCPX), Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap), and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) – would be delivered and will come in under budget, eventually delivering 16-32bn m³/yr.

An analysis by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that the natural gas revolution generated more than 4.3 million jobs and injected nearly half a trillion dollars into the economy. It also determined that all those jobs would have been lost had the so-called “Keep it in the Ground” movement succeeded in suffocating the oil revolution.