U.S. imports of foreign oil are rising again after a long decline, as the oil bust forces domestic producers to scale back.

With oil prices stuck at $50 per barrel, the Saudi Arabia’s annual export income will be around $130 billion lower this year in comparison to last year, Jason Tuvey, Middle East Economist at British economic research and consulting company Capital Economics said in a report obtained by Trend.

Estimated total U.S. oil and natural gas well completions decreased by 44 percent in the third quarter of 2015 compared to year-ago levels, according to API's 2015 Quarterly Well Completion Report, Third Quarter.

A Chinese holding company signed a letter of intent to purchase oil and gas assets in the Permian basin of West Texas for $1.3 billion through a limited liability partnership.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday Kremlin-controlled gas producer Gazprom has offered gas supplies to Iran under a swap arrangement, and similar oil deals were also under consideration.

“Saudi Arabia actually triggered the price drop when it decided to defend its market share. The number of shale oil wells in North America has declined ever since, and probably won’t start to increase until the price hits $60[/bbl],”

U.S. Rig Count is unchanged from last week at 787, with oil rigs down 1 to 594, and gas rigs up 1 to 193.

In our view, Rosneft alone can offer European partners to participate in the projects for the amount of about $100 bln., the Head of Rosneft said. «The scale of Rosneft investment program assumes one of the world's largest anchor orders for engineering industry and chemical industry products, in the first place – about 4.6 bln. euro annually, pointed out Igor Sechin. – Аnd Rosneft aggregate demand for materials in 2016-2018 will amount to € 15.9 bln.».

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.