Shell has already taken action to cut costs and reduce spending this year by $12 billion, but Tuesday’s announcement of a $33 billion target for next year is $2 billion below the company’s previous guidance.

US oil major Chevron said on Tuesday it planned to sell up to 1m metric tonnes of LNG a year to China Huadian Green Energy from 2020, ensuring 80 per cent of gas from its Gorgon and Wheatstone projects is committed in long-term contracts.

A spokesman for the US oil and gas producer confirmed it had sold its 50 per cent stake in the venture, which is focused on the far north-west of Russia. Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, also sold its stake in the asset last week, in a deal that valued the business at about $150m-$200m, according to one person familiar with the matter.

OPEC said it now assumes the price of the reference basket of crude oil produced by its members would be $70 a barrel in 2020, rising to $95 a barrel by 2040.

Gazprom and some utilities say Nord Stream-2 is the most pragmatic solution to shoring up Europe's energy security. The European Commission has said it is assessing its legality.

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, became the latest senior politician to criticise plans for a new pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany, saying it would undermine the EU’s goal of reducing energy dependence on Moscow.

"OPEC can't take a unilateral decision, for example, to cut production and others ... raise production. Either we all go to cut production to really defend prices or we have to wait and see,"

The deal, which could be worth around $1 billion based on the valuation of a recent stake purchase, is expected to take final shape during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow next week for summit talks with President Vladimir Putin, said the sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

U.S. Rig Count is unchanged from last week at 709, with oil rigs up 17 to 541, and gas rigs down 17 to 168.

Within the ambit of delivering strategic goals of boosting production, securing deliveries of oil and oil products, maintaining a market share (both in Russia and abroad), the Company plans to increase capital expenditures by a third (compared to 2015 levels).

OAO NOVATEK announced today the signing of binding definitive agreements as part of a transaction for selling an equity stake in the Yamal LNG project to China’s Silk Road Fund (“SRF”).

The push into Asia comes at a pivotal moment in Saudi Arabia. With oil revenue falling, the kingdom is tightening its belt just as a new king ventures away from the kingdom’s traditionally conservative diplomacy. The International Monetary Fund predicts a budget deficit exceeding 20 percent of economic output this year.

"First of all, our policy calls for maintaining production at 525-530 million tonnes (a year), according to our energy strategy"

Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state oil giant, is seeking to borrow $4.7 billion from banks to refinance capital used to build a refinery in collaboration with China's Sinopec, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

Any change in U.S. oil policy will have “zero” impact on the market because the country remains an importer, OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri said Tuesday.