Iran's economy shrank by 4.6% in the 2018-2019 fiscal year and the contraction is expected to deepen to 7.2% in the current fiscal year, the IIF, a finance industry body, said this week.

The crude stocks held by Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi were 1.41 million kiloliters, or 8.87 million barrels, at the end of November, equating to four days of Japanese oil consumption, up from 1.1 million kiloliters a month earlier, according to data released Wednesday by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

A production cap has been put in place to prevent earthquakes linked to gas extraction at Groningen and the Dutch government plans to phase out gas extraction at the field completely by mid-2022.

In its first development phase, Leviathan has a production capacity of 1.2 Bcf/d (34 million cu m/d).

In 2019, NOVATEK’s hydrocarbon production totaled 590.1 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), including 74.70 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas and 12,148 thousand tons of liquids (gas condensate and crude oil), resulting in an increase in total hydrocarbons produced by 41.0 million boe, or by 7.5% as compared with the twelve months 2018.

Solar and wind power use has grown at a rapid rate over the past decade or so, but as of 2018 those sources accounted for less than 4% of all the energy used in the U.S.

The government will pay up to 14 billion euros ($15.61 billion) in financial aid to the affected states of Brandenburg, North-Rhine Westphalia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt until 2038, the spokesman said. Berlin would take further measures worth up to 26 billion euros to help brown coal regions until 2038 at the latest.

The German government plans to compensate utility RWE (RWEG.DE) with around 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) for costs related to the country’s planned coal exit, two government sources said on Thursday.

To date, the EBRD has signed €34 billion in green investments, financed over 1900 green projects that are expected to reduce 102 million tonnes of carbon emissions yearly. In 2019 alone, the Bank financed over 2.2 GW of new renewable power capacity.

Hydrogen will be part of Turkey's short and long-term goals to ensure the security of energy supply, Dönmez said.

Brent was down 16 cents, or 0.3%, at $64.33 per barrel, WTI were down 15 cents, or 0.3%, at $58.08 a barrel.

Brent crude oil spot prices will average $65 per barrel (b) in 2020 and $68/b in 2021, compared with an average of $64/b in 2019. EIA expects West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average about $5.50/b lower than Brent prices through 2020 and 2021, compared with an average WTI discount of about $7.35/b in 2019.

But Papa, boss of the world’s largest oilfield services company, expects U.S. output to grow by just 400,000 bpd in 2020 and by 100,000-500,000 bpd per year through 2025, depending on future oil prices.

U.S. dry gas production will fall to 94.11 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2021 from a record 94.74 bcfd in 2020. The current all-time high is 92.03 bcfd in 2019.

Last year, China imported a record 506 million tonnes of crude oil, 9.5% above 2018’s level, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.