Oil today stands at around $50 a barrel, having more than halved since June 2014 after global supplies dramatically rose due in large part to the U.S. shale oil boom but also due to the unlocking of huge offshore reserves in Brazil, Africa and Asia.

The winter natural gas futures strip, the four contracts from December 2015 through March 2016, averaged $2.419 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) over the report week (Wednesday, October 28, through Wednesday, November 4). This is nearly 40% lower than the five-year average, and one-third lower than the five-year minimum in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex).

The Saudi-Russian battle for Europe's crude oil buyers intensified this week as Swedish refiner Preem bought its first cargo of Saudi Arabian crude oil in around two decades, trading sources said.

The regulators gave a negative classification to $372.6 billion out of $3.9 trillion in loans impacted by the review, or 9.5 percent of the loans. Classified loans increased 9.4 percent from a year ago.

“The efficiency of Japanese investments (alternative to those in Russia) is mostly very low. From what we know in the last 3 yeast Japanese firms faced almost 600 bln yen of write downs (around 6 bln USD) because of bad investments in projects associated with hard-to-recover hydrocarbons in US and Canada, and also because of unsuccessful projects in the North Sea. And this had to be done in a period of high oil prices! De-facto IRR for international upstream projects of INPEX by the end of 2014 was 3.1% (Wood Macikenzie estimates). This is around 4 times less than a standard revenue ratio”.

“There are a lot of gas projects under development in the world, and that will drive demand for more ships,” Kim said Oct. 28. “Growing environmental concerns also are pushing demand for more gas-powered power plants, which means there will be more demand for gas.”

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc will retain $8 billion a year in cash by giving investors the option of receiving payouts in shares instead, according to Jean-Pierre Dmirdjian, an analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd. That’s equivalent to about 8.5 percent of total cash and equivalents currently on their books, making the so-called scrip dividend a vital tool as companies curb spending to ride out the slump in oil prices.

Advanced biofuel made from agricultural waste — the so called Holy Grail of the alternative energy industry — will not be competitive with conventional fuel until the oil is back to $70-$80 per barrel, DuPont has said.

"If both countries agree on the discount, progress can be achieved on the Turkish Stream Natural Gas Pipeline project, which both countries will benefit from economically"

Internal OPEC squabbles are on the rise as members argue about the need to support a fair oil price and boost revenues just as they feel more pain from low crude prices.

"It is evident that the global oil dynamic has experienced a fundamental shift, driven by the resilience in supply," said CEO Asim Ghosh. "Back in 2010, we made the decision to stay diversified, integrated and begin a transition into a low sustaining capital business. In a lower for longer world, our low sustaining capital projects in the Asia Pacific Region, oil sands, heavy oil thermals and Downstream margin business have become even more strategic.

Long term, US LNG, will be cheaper on a cost basis than LNG from most of the rest of the world, according to Kimball Chen, Chairman, Energy Transportation Group.

U.S. Rig Count is down 12 rigs from last week to 775, with oil rigs down 16 to 578, and gas rigs up 4 to 197. U.S. Rig Count is down 1,154 rigs from last year at 1,929, with oil rigs down 1,004, and gas rigs down 149. The U.S. Offshore rig count is 33, down 2 rigs from last week, and down 20 rigs year over year.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) reported earnings of $2.0 billion ($1.09 per share – diluted) for third quarter 2015, compared with earnings of $5.6 billion ($2.95 per share – diluted) in the 2014 third quarter. Foreign currency effects increased earnings in the 2015 quarter by $394 million, compared with an increase of $366 million a year earlier.

Exxon Mobil Corporation today announced estimated third quarter 2015 earnings of $4.2 billion, or $1.01 per diluted share, compared with $8.1 billion a year earlier. Significantly lower Upstream realizations more than offset higher Downstream and Chemical earnings.