BHGE - U.S. Rig Count is unchanged from last week at 1,075 rigs, with oil rigs down 4 to 873 and gas rigs up 4 to 202. Canada Rig Count is up 108 rigs from last week to 184, with oil rigs up 83 to 103 and gas rigs up 25 to 81.

REUTERS - U.S. sanctions against the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline would be the wrong way to solve a dispute over energy supply, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Thursday.

REUTERS - The number of U.S. liquefied natural gas vessels that went to China in 2018 fell by around 20 percent from the prior year as the trade war between Beijing and Washington heated up.

POWERMAG - A new study from an economic research group shows that U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) rose about 3.4% last year, including a 1.9% rise in emissions from power generation.

EIA - In 2018, the average annual Henry Hub natural gas spot price increased to $3.16 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), up 15 cents from the 2017 average.

OGJ - US commercial crude oil inventories, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, remained virtually unchanged for the week ended Dec. 28, 2018,

U.S. BLS - Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 312,000 in December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, food services and drinking places, construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.

BHGE - U.S. Rig Count is down 8 rigs from last week to 1,075, with oil rigs down 8 to 877 and gas rigs unchanged at 198. Canada Rig Count is up 6 rigs from last week to 76, with oil rigs up 5 to 20 and gas rigs up 1 to 56.

MEOG - A $60-70 per barrel oil price level appears adequate to incentivise sufficient long-term supply. The cost to develop both tight oil resources and conventional upstream oil projects has declined significantly since the oil price collapse of 2015-16.

BHGE - U.S. Rig Count is up 3 rigs from last week to 1,083, with oil rigs up 2 to 885 and gas rigs up 1 to 198. Canada Rig Count is down 61 rigs from last week to 70, with oil rigs down 43 to 15 and gas rigs down 18 to 55.

PLATTS - The US has long opposed the Nord Stream expansion, arguing that Europe should not be so dependent on Moscow for energy. The government has recently been touting US LNG exports as an alternative to Russian gas, in addition to supporting the Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian region to the EU.

PLATTS - The downward trend in output from Mexico's state oil company Pemex continued in November as oil and gas production fell 2.7% and 2.3% respectively, from the previous month, company data showed Wednesday.

OGJ - US crude oil inventories, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 500,000 bbl for the week ended Dec. 14, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.

U.S. EIA - U.S. primary energy production totaled 8.0 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu), a 10% increase compared with September 2017.

PLATTS - Three aggressive independent Permian Basin upstream operators released capital budgets for 2019 in the last few days that are lower than either prior expectations or actual 2018 spending by at least 12% to 15%, as corporate executives attributed reduced activity to the recent plunge in oil prices.