The plan appears to be working. Oil remains 33 percent lower than when OPEC revealed its strategy on Nov. 27, trading for $48.38 a barrel at 10:13 a.m. in London Wednesday. U.S. crude production has retreated about 500,000 barrels a day from the three-decade peak reached in June to 9.1 million a day in the week to Oct. 9, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan all have safety cushions of income from oil and gas to help in the hard times of benchmark Brent crude under $50 a barrel.

Russia supplied a record amount of crude oil to China in September, surpassing Saudi Arabia for the second time as the top seller to the Asian giant, customs data showed, boosted by demand from independent refiners.

The API Director of Upstream Erik Milito released the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s decision to deny Arctic offshore development extension requests and scheduled 2016 and 2017 Arctic lease sales

Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell by 278,000 barrels per day in August, despite historically high wellhead production, while volumes of shipped refined oil products rose to a record high, official data showed on Sunday.

The foreign investment arm of India's top oil explorer ONGC is targeting $10-$12 billion of oil and gas asset purchases over the next three years, including more corporate acquisitions, its managing director said.

Vitol, the world's largest oil trader, believes the crude price will struggle to trade above $60 a barrel next year, as the effects of slowing global demand growth could be compounded by a return of Iranian and maybe even Libyan barrels.

"The fourth-quarter oil demand will be mainly boosted by heating oil demand in Asia. And in 2016, North America and Asia will continue to drive the global oil demand growth," the country's third-largest refiner said in an earnings statement.

Two of the biggest independent oil explorers in the North Sea have predicted a further 10,000 jobs will be lost from the sector, indicating a growing acceptance that oil prices are stuck in a prolonged slump.

Norwegian petroleum and other liquids production, which had been declining since 2001, increased in 2014 and will likely continue increasing in 2015. The production growth in 2014 was mainly the result of new fields coming online, but also included a small increase in output from existing fields. Production has continued to grow in the first half of 2015 and is expected to remain relatively stable over the next few years as growth from new fields balances declines from older fields.

U.S. Rig Count is down 8 rigs from last week to 787, with oil rigs down 10 to 595, gas rigs up 3 to 192, and miscellaneous rigs down 1 to 0.

Russia has for years been muscling in on Asian markets where Saudi Arabia was once the unchallenged dominant supplier. But now Riyadh is retaliating in Moscow's backyard of Europe with aggressive price discounting.

DEA Deutsche Erdoel (DEA), a company based in Germany controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s investment firm LetterOne, signed an agreement to buy 100% of E.ON’s shares in E.ON E&P Norge for $1.6 billion, explaining that the transaction will allow DEA doubling its current production in Norway.

The oil price collapse over the past 16 months has forced the world’s biggest energy companies to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in future spending to bolster their balance sheets. But Ali al-Naimi — oil minister and architect of the Saudi strategy to maintain output and keep prices low to hobble its rivals — voiced a commitment to press on with investments in exploration, production and refining.

Britain has told Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman he was still welcome to invest in the country even after he was forced to divest gas assets there under pressure from the previous government.