Saudi Arabia and OPEC would find it “difficult, if not impossible” to give up market share by cutting crude production, the country’s oil minister said.

U.S. oil drillers pulled rigs this week as crude traded below $60 a barrel for the seventh straight day.

Crude prices surged from the lowest closing levels since May 2009 as comments from Saudi Arabia’s oil minister yesterday added to the most volatile market in three years.

Shale gas was supposed to be Ukraine’s ticket to greater energy independence from Russia. Chevron Corp. (CVX)’s decision to pull the plug has smashed those hopes.

Israel made another discovery off its coast. The newly discovered field, Royee, may hold up to 3.2 Tcf of natural gas according to a statement made by the Israeli partners in the field Ratio and Israel Opportunity who hold respectively 70%, and 10% stakes.

The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced new Western sanctions against Ukraine's Crimea region on Saturday as a "collective punishment" on local residents who voted in a referendum last March to join Russia.

On December 18, Rosneft’s Board of Directors reviewed preliminary results of the Company’s performance in 2014 and approved the 2015-2016 plan.

The IEA Oil Market Report for December cut the outlook for 2015 global oil demand growth by 230 000 barrels per day (230 kb/d) to 0.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) on lower expectations for the Former Soviet Union and other oil‐exporting countries.

For now it is only a distant rumble, but many oil executives and advisers believe they can hear it coming: a gusher of oil deals that is set to erupt next year.

Turmoil gripped global foreign exchange markets on Tuesday, driving investors to the safety of the yen and the Swiss franc as Russia's rouble went into a tailspin and oil prices fell below $60 a barrel.

OPEC Gulf members and crisis-hit producer Russia held the line on resisting oil output cuts, a message that helped send oil to a fresh five-year low on Tuesday.

Crude oil prices are poised to fall below half where they were six months ago, before producers begin dealing with a global glut.

North Sea Brent crude oil spot prices fell by more than 15% in November, declining from $85/barrel (bbl) on November 3 to $72/bbl on November 28. Monthly average Brent crude oil prices have declined 29% from their 2014 high of $112/bbl in June to an average of $79/bbl in November, the lowest monthly average since September 2010. The November price decline reflects continued growth in U.S. tight oil production along with weakening outlooks for the global economy and oil demand growth. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision in late November to maintain its current crude oil production target, despite lower oil prices, put additional downward pressure on price expectations.

'Contraction unavoidable’ as oil prices fall

EIA expects U.S. crude oil production to average 9.3 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2015, up 0.7 million bbl/d from 2014