The ability of the US with its newly found export capacity mostly based on shale gas development provides gas into the global market, he explained, for which the European market can benefit as long as the prices in Europe are attractive to a US producer.

“We're interested in seeing more interconnected markets in Europe. We obviously can deliver very flexibly to any terminal; we're not bound into delivering to just one location, as you would be with a pipeline, and what we're really interested in doing is securing new markets, developing integrated projects possibly involving power plants as well, or floating re-gas infrastructure with a power plant behind it, a business model we've operated in Chile; we're looking at doing something similar in Croatia,”

Low oil prices have hurt manufacturers that supply and service the sector

U.S. Rig Count is down 7 rigs from last week to 737, with oil rigs down 10 to 545, and gas rigs up 3 to 192.

China will add 70-90 million barrels of crude to storage tanks in 2016 to build up its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR).

Sinopec Corp (0386.HK), Asia's largest refiner, and Chinese state trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp will together lift around 505,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Iran in 2016, the same as this year when they took roughly half of the Islamic Republic's total exports, the sources said.

“There are no geographical boundaries for profitability,” Nylund said in the interview in Kristiansund on the coast of central Norway. “When you work with solutions, optimizations, adjustments here and there, you see that the cost level comes down.”

“Lower activity in the oil sector is having a damping effect on growth prospects for most sectors, while the level of activity is expected to be sustained by rising growth in public investment,” the central bank said in the report.

Gazprom has already spent €1.8bn on purchasing physical pipe for the first and second “strings” - or lines, of pipe to be laid under the Black Sea. Pipe, delivered by Germany’s Europipe and Russia’s United Metallurgical Company (OMK) under the first string contract, signed in January 2014, is now largely stashed on the wharves of the Bulgarian port of Varna. The fate of pipe ordered for the second string, under contracts placed in March 2014, is not known.

OMV and Gazprom are two of the shareholders in the contentious Nord Stream-2 expansion project. BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, and Shell are the four other stakeholders.

Norway traditionally vies with Russia to be the EU’s top gas supplier, providing about 30 per cent of import demand. In terms of energy security, EU officials hail Norway as a model of stability compared with the political and commercial risks associated with Russia and Algeria.

The mistaken prognoses highlight the challenges OPEC faces on Friday when the group’s ministers gather in Vienna for a potentially contentious meeting.

Libya, an Opec member, is producing a fraction of the 1.6m barrels a day it pumped before the downfall of Muammer Gaddafi four years ago. Its oil industry and infrastructure has been shattered by years of conflict that has divided the country.

“Relatively low gas prices, combined with low oil prices, have slowed drilling in the Marcellus (Shale) so production from new wells is only offsetting the decline in old wells,” said EIA lead upstream analyst Dana Van Wagener.

U.S. oil production decreased on 259,000 barrels per day