EIA estimates that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), excluding Iran, will earn about $700 billion in revenue from net oil exports in 2014, a 14% decrease from 2013 earnings and the lowest earnings for the group since 2010. OPEC earnings declined in 2014 largely for two reasons: decreases in the amount of OPEC oil exports and lower oil prices, with the 2014 average for Brent crude oil projected to be 8% below the average 2013 price.

Saudi Arabia and OPEC would find it “difficult, if not impossible” to give up market share by cutting crude production, the country’s oil minister said.

U.S. oil drillers pulled rigs this week as crude traded below $60 a barrel for the seventh straight day.

Crude prices surged from the lowest closing levels since May 2009 as comments from Saudi Arabia’s oil minister yesterday added to the most volatile market in three years.

Over and over again, they keep insisting on their Third Energy Package, which the Russian leaders refer to as ‘a very harmful document’, and want Gazprom to unbundle its gas supplying, transporting and marketing businesses; share pipeline space with other gas producers; obey independent regulators and transmission operators; and drop manipulations with prices.

America’s oil and gas boom was enabled by a huge pile of cheap financing.

The IEA Oil Market Report for December cut the outlook for 2015 global oil demand growth by 230 000 barrels per day (230 kb/d) to 0.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) on lower expectations for the Former Soviet Union and other oil‐exporting countries.

For now it is only a distant rumble, but many oil executives and advisers believe they can hear it coming: a gusher of oil deals that is set to erupt next year.

Turmoil gripped global foreign exchange markets on Tuesday, driving investors to the safety of the yen and the Swiss franc as Russia's rouble went into a tailspin and oil prices fell below $60 a barrel.

OPEC Gulf members and crisis-hit producer Russia held the line on resisting oil output cuts, a message that helped send oil to a fresh five-year low on Tuesday.

Crude oil prices are poised to fall below half where they were six months ago, before producers begin dealing with a global glut.

North Sea Brent crude oil spot prices fell by more than 15% in November, declining from $85/barrel (bbl) on November 3 to $72/bbl on November 28. Monthly average Brent crude oil prices have declined 29% from their 2014 high of $112/bbl in June to an average of $79/bbl in November, the lowest monthly average since September 2010. The November price decline reflects continued growth in U.S. tight oil production along with weakening outlooks for the global economy and oil demand growth. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision in late November to maintain its current crude oil production target, despite lower oil prices, put additional downward pressure on price expectations.

'Contraction unavoidable’ as oil prices fall

EIA expects U.S. crude oil production to average 9.3 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2015, up 0.7 million bbl/d from 2014

Crude oil prices extended their slump on the New York market with a Dec. 11 settlement of less than $60/bbl for January, and prices continued downward in early Dec. 12 trading after the International Energy Agency cut its global oil demand growth forecast for 2015.