China and Japan dispute sovereignty over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets, while in the South China Sea, Beijing is building islands on reefs to bolster its claims.

Putin's interest in Israeli gas is neither secret nor new. In 2012 Russia's Gazprom discussed the possible purchase of a 30% stake in Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field. In 2013 Gazprom signed a contract to purchase much of the Tamar gas field's production but the contract wasn’t approved by Israel's Energy Ministry.

Russia has been developing new pipeline projects such as South Stream, Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2. If one of them were to be realized then transit risk stemming from Ukraine would be severely minimized and Moscow would have important strategic leverage.

During the first quarter of 2016, the decline in global activity and the rate of activity disruption reached unprecedented levels as the industry displayed clear signs of operating in a full-scale cash crisis. Budgeted E&P spend fell again and substantially affected our operating results. This environment is expected to continue deteriorating over the coming quarter given the magnitude and erratic nature of the disruptions in activity.

Net income (loss) from continuing operations for the quarter was a loss of $396.6 million, or ($1.41) per diluted share, compared to a loss of $161.1 million, or ($0.57) per diluted share, last quarter.

BP’s first-quarter replacement cost (RC) loss was $485 million, compared with a profit of $2,103 million a year ago. After adjusting for a net charge for non-operating items of $778 million and net unfavourable fair value accounting effects of $239 million (both on a post-tax basis), underlying RC profit for the first quarter was $532 million, compared with $2,577 million for the same period in 2015. Cumulative restructuring charges from the beginning of the fourth quarter 2014 totalled $1.9 billion by the end of the first quarter 2016.

Within unstable market conditions Rosneft proceeds looking for new sources of increase of the Company’s capitalization, boosting the efficiency of the investment program and its operations. This will inevitably relate to the operations of the central administrative office – we have set a goal to cut its staff size by 20% relative to the level of 01.01.2016.

Russia's largest independent gas producer Novatek plans to raise further $12bn in external financing for the Yamal LNG project, said Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia plans to generate 9.5 gigawatts of electricity from renewable energy by 2030, it said in Vision 2030 reform plan.

Смысл был договариваться в феврале, есть он и в апреле. Но, действительно, чем больше времени проходит, тем более значимыми становятся фундаментальные рыночные факторы. За счет снижения инвестиций в отрасль в результате низких цен предложение будет снижаться. Мы видим, что только за последние два года мейджоры существенно подсократили свои инвестиционные программы, общее недофинансирование отрасли составляет около $400 млрд. Наблюдается падение добычи сланцевой нефти в США уже больше чем на 500 тыс. баррелей с пиковых величин — сейчас они добывают меньше 9 млн баррелей в сутки. Это все будет влиять на то, что при росте спроса предложение будет снижаться, рынок все равно выровняется.

Китай в 2015 году стал первым импортером нефти, обогнав по этому показателю США. Также заметен тренд по увеличению доли газа в энергобалансе. Существуют 4 аспекта российского интереса: Китай – рынок сбыта, Китай – акционер, Китай – кредитор, Китай – технологический партнер.

“With this rule, the Russian government is trying to break the vicious dependence of the economy on oil via the ruble. What’s changing is that the Russian government is signaling to the market participants that the ruble will be more predictable to spur investments into the economy.”

The May crude oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange climbed $1.55 on Apr. 20 to $42.63/bbl. The June contract was up $1.71 to $44.18/bbl.

"I think $45 is a bit of a relief for all the oil producers around the world, but this is still far lower than to make the entire shale oil production profitable for the United States."

The impact of weaker prices is being compounded by lower profits from refining, a business that has been bailing out oil majors over the past couple of years. Global refining margins dropped to $10.50 a barrel in the first quarter, 31 percent lower than a year earlier and 20 percent lower than the preceding quarter.