On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $43.35 a barrel at 0358 GMT, up $0.19 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.22 to $45.67 a barrel. Week-to-date, both benchmarks were last down by around 9%, the biggest slump since the week of January 10 when prices dropped 11%.

The agreements were signed at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Russia by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, the president of BP Russia David Campbell and Schlumberger’s regional president Gokhan Saygi.

The country is able to pump as much as 12.5 million barrels a day of oil, he said in comments broadcast during an official visit to buyers in Asia, its biggest market, including China.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Jawad Kadhim Al Abadi and his Kurdish counterpart, Nechirvan Barzani, have agreed to split the proposed export volume of 150,000 bopd from Kirkuk’s Baba Gorgor and Khabbaz fields between them. On Tuesday, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw also claimed an agreement on Kirkuk oil had been reached.

“Combining CNPC’s operational expertise with BP’s technology and experience, we now expect to leverage the synergies between these blocks. This new PSC clearly demonstrates our continued commitment to invest in projects in China which will deliver long-term value to BP, to our Chinese partners and, most importantly, to the country.”

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $46.20 a barrel at 0122 GMT, down $0.15 in the Globex electronic session, the lowest intraday level since Aug 12. October Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.02 to $48.35 a barrel.

“We support freezing oil production by OPEC due to the sharp decline of oil prices,” Mr. Abadi said at a news conference, saying it would help government-salaried oil-industry workers.

“There are no easy buttons to push. It’s not simply about the oil price, the Paris Agreement or the still incomplete single market. It’s about the interdependencies and how these factors amplify each other. At the end of the day, economic as well as social and ecological interests must be in balance with supply security in Europe.”

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Chevron U.S.A. Inc., has signed a binding LNG Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with ENN LNG Trading Company Limited (ENN) for the delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China from Chevron’s global supply portfolio. Under the terms of the SPA, ENN will receive up to 0.65 million metric tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG over 10 years, with the first delivery expected to start in 2018 or the first half of 2019.

In recent years, given the huge potential in Indonesia LNG market, JSK has ventured into the LNG supply chain. Recently, it was awarded the LNG re-gasification and storage contracts to support a gas-fired power plant in Bali, Indonesia. Following the successful completion of the deal, Coastal Contracts would have joint control over JSK Gas’s operating subsidiaries and assets. JSK Gas, through its 99% owned subsidiary Benoa Gas Terminal (BGT), would be engaged in the operations and transfer of a floating LNG regasification unit over a five-year contract period.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) has reported a 21.6% drop in net profit for the six months that ended on June 30 as international oil and natural gas prices remained low.

LetterOne, Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's investment vehicle, is looking at acquisitions in renewable energy and oil assets in the North Sea outside of Britain, its executive chairman John Browne told.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at $49.38 per barrel at 0505 GMT, up 12 cents from their previous close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 17 cents at $47.15 a barrel.

With oil prices down by more than half since the price collapse two years ago, drillers have cut their exploration budgets to the bone. The result: Just 2.7 billion barrels of new supply was discovered in 2015, the smallest amount since 1947. This year, drillers found just 736 million barrels of conventional crude as of the end of last month.

The decline is a result of a combination of simpler development concepts and more efficient drilling. Lower prices for work and equipment are also a contributing factor.