REUTERS - “The project will definitely be financed. It is important for Gazprom and Russia currently has a high liquidity in euros,” Paul Corcoran, the Nord Stream 2 CFO, told Welt am Sonntag in an interview.

PLATTS - India's oil ministry has instructed state-run refiners such as Indian OilCorp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. toscout for alternative sources to Iranian oil.

PLATTS - Russian gas giant Gazprom can set a new historical gas export record ofnearly 200 Bcm in 2018, up nearly 3% on the year, as demand in Europecontinues rising amid declining production in the region, the company'sCEO Alexei Miller said Friday.

REUTERS - Germany has been assured by the United States that any sanctions imposed on Russia will not affect the building of a gas pipeline to bring Russian gas to Europe, a spokeswoman for the German economy ministry said on Friday.

МИНЭНЕРГО РОССИИ - в ходе переговоров был актуализирован статус реализации совместных инфраструктурных проектов «Северный поток-2» и «Турецкий поток», направленных на диверсификацию маршрутов транзита газа и повышения энергетической безопасности ЕС.

OGJ - Sandra Oudkirk, deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy at the US Department of State, confirmed that the Trump administration has received several requests to sanction the proposed Gazprom-sponsored pipeline that would extend from Russia beneath the Baltic Sea to Germany.

PLATTS - The Libyan National Army has retaken the key eastern oil terminals of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider that shut 450,000 b/d of crude production, the head of the state-owned National Oil Corp. said Friday.

NOVATEK - According to the MOU, the parties agreed to explore opportunities for KOGAS to enter the Arctic LNG 2 project and possible LNG off-take from the project, participate in the LNG transshipment project in Kamchatka and other infrastructure projects, as well as develop cooperation in LNG trading and logistics optimization, including swap operations.

GAZPROM - The meeting highlighted that Germany continued to ramp up its imports of Russian gas. According to preliminary data, from January 1 through June 19, 2018, Gazprom supplied Germany with 28.2 billion cubic meters of gas, an increase of 13.1 per cent from the same period of 2017.

U.S. EIA - Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, in large part because of the heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco Oil Basin. In addition to oil reserves, Venezuela has sizeable natural gas reserves, although the development of natural gas lags significantly behind that of oil. However, in the wake of political and economic instability in the country, crude oil production has dramatically decreased, reaching a multi-decades low in mid-2018.

PLATTS - Since the US dropped all limits on crude exports in 2015, China has competed with Canada as the top buyer of US crude. US crude exports to China averaged over 358,000 b/d in the first quarter, up from nearly 175,000 b/d in Q1 2017. US crude's market share in China rose to 3.5% from 0.4% over the same period.

PLATTS - Nigerian oil has been slow to sell this month as bidders for the country's July-loading heavy and light sweet crudes have been absent from the market. Market participants pegged the amount of unsold Nigerian barrels loading in July at 20 million-34 million barrels, amounting to roughly 40%-75% of what is produced in a month.

PLATTS - "Today we submitted a petition to the Court of Appeal in Sweden," Vitrenko said as the Ukrainian company looks to find legal grounds to continue its efforts to seize Gazprom assets in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK to enforce the arbitration award.

IMF - “In this regard, I commended the President for his leadership that enabled the approval of the law, and welcomed his intention to make the court operational by the end of this year. We agreed that it is now important for parliament to quickly approve the supplementary law submitted by the President to formally establish the court, as well as the necessary amendments to restore the requirement that the HACC will adjudicate all cases under its jurisdiction, including all appeals of relevant first instance court decisions, as it was in the draft law approved in the first reading.

PLATTS - ExxonMobil's planned LNG import project in Victoria will compete with AGL's planned LNG import terminal in the same state -- at Crib Point near Melbourne -- projected to come online by financial year 2020-2021, and AIE's project next door in the state of New South Wales, potentially at Port Kembla, Newcastle or Port Botany, expected by as early as 2020.