Saudi Arabia said on Sunday OPEC’s job in rebalancing the oil market was far from done as global inventories were still rising despite harsh U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, signaling it may need to expand output cuts into the second half of 2019.

In the context of supply and demand balance,the current price of BRENT oil is undervalued.Neither OPEC nor the IEA has considerably brought down their forecasts for global oil demand in the current year.

U.S. DT - the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated six Russian individuals and eight entities in response to Russia’s continued and ongoing aggression in Ukraine.

India’s demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is set to rise by about 10 percent this year even as the country adds import capacity at a faster clip, because infrastructure constraints keep gas from getting to consumers and hinder growth rates.

In 2018, Gazprom increased gas exports to France by 5.4 per cent as compared to 2017 – up to 12.9 billion cubic meters. This upward trend has remained throughout early 2019: according to provisional estimates, Gazprom exported 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas from January 1 to March 14, 2019, showing a 1.9 per cent increase compared to the same period of 2018.

Abu Dhabi is one of the most important examples of a city that is creatively seeking to strengthen its renewable energy sector.

NPD - Preliminary production figures for February 2019 show an average daily production of 1 745 000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate, which is a decrease of 75 000 barrels per day compared to January.

U.S. DT - During 2018, real GDP increased by 3.1 percent measured from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018.

U.S. FRB - Industrial production edged up 0.1 percent in February after decreasing 0.4 percent in January.

OGJ - Stephen Blank, senior fellow for Russia at the American Foreign Policy Council, said, “Nord Stream 2 clearly is a threat to Europe, which is why the Trump administration opposes it. We have now threatened that if Nord Stream 2 is built, the US will impose sanctions not just on the project, but also on the contractors.”

BHGE -U.S. Rig Count is down 1 rig from last week to 1,026 rigs, with oil rigs down 1 to 833 and gas rigs unchanged at 193. Canada Rig Count is down 28 rigs from last week to 161, with oil rigs down 20 to 98 and gas rigs down 8 to 63.

Oil prices were stable on Friday, propped up by production cuts led by OPEC and as U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran likely created a slight deficit in global supply in the first quarter of 2019.

In 2018, world oil demand is estimated to have grown by 1.43 mb/d, down by 0.04 mb/d from the previous estimate amid downward revisions in both OECD and non-OECD regions.

U.S. natural gas production grew by 10.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2018, an 11% increase from 2017. The growth was the largest annual increase in production on record, reaching a record high for the second consecutive year

Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. continue to rise, as the use of natural gas for power generation increases in countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, and Mexico.