According to a recent report from Swift Worldwide Resources, over 150,000 jobs in the global oil and gas industry have been cut since oil prices began to tumble last summer.

Brazil’s Petrobras will cut its spending by 37 percent through the next four years in an effort to tame its enormous $110 billion debt.

“The steel jacket will also be one of the most complex ever built by the industry. Not only will we route the land-based power through the jacket, we’ll also be controlling the subsea water injection and exporting the field’s oil and gas from it,”

Booming U.S. shale production helped cut OPEC’s global crude market share to a 12 year low last year.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from oil majors BP and Anadarko Petroleum leaving intact a lower court ruling that makes the firms potentially liable for billions of dollars in fines for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Russia’s top investigative body, the federal Investigative Committee, said on its website Tuesday that it wants to question Mr. Khodorkovsky about the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of the Siberian city of Nefteyugansk, where Yukos had its biggest oil-production unit.

China's apparent oil demand* in May increased 8.2% from a year earlier to 43.80 million metric tons (mt), or an average 10.36 million barrels per day (b/d).

Egypt’s average natural gas production declined this year to 4.395bn cubic feet per day, compared to about 4.6bn cubic feet in 2014.

Construction has begun on the Chinese section of the Russia-China Gas Pipeline, according to China National Petroleum Corp.

Shale output in the United States will prove resilient to low oil prices likely to be prolonged by the prospect of half a million barrels per day of Iranian crude making its way back to the market.

Petroleum product exports averaged 4.1 million barrels per day (b/d) in the first four months of the year, the latest monthly data available. This was an increase of 0.5 million b/d over the same time last year.

Worldwide, job cuts from the oil bust reached a staggering 150,000 at the end of May, according to energy recruiting firm Swift Worldwide Resources. However, some analysts believe the worst is over, and by the end of the year, the US could see a stout recovery. Analysts tend to agree that a slowdown in non-OPEC production, led by U.S. shale producers, and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly Iraq, would support prices this year.

“Shale was the biggest event to happen in the past decade. As shale gas production increases every year, LNG import levels have dropped drastically in the United States. In 2014, they imported only 1.6 bcm compared to 200 bcm of their total import capacity. Now, it’s expected to become an LNG exporter by the end of this year at the earliest.”

Ukraine expects to store enough natural gas for next winter despite cutting off imports from Russia and Russian flows crossing the country destined for Europe will not be disrupted, Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said on Thursday.

Turkey remains reluctant to enter the EU Energy Community, as it would decrease its leeway on its energy policies. European laws can suit some other neighbours, but Turkey is a completely different case. Its importance for Europe, in the energy sector or in relation to migration issues, should not be underestimated.

Russia has been hit by lower oil prices and by Western sanctions over its role in the Ukraine crisis. Its rouble currency fell sharply against the dollar in 2014 and has yet to recover.

The quest for European energy security this week suffered a pair of setbacks in Britain and Germany, two countries with large reserves of shale oil and gas.

Pipelines do not determine flows: infrastructure is necessary, but flows depend on market realities. Nord Stream, for instance, expanded Russia’s export capacity by a third in 2012, yet Russia’s exports are still far below their pre-crisis levels. Exports from Algeria have suffered the same fate: in 2011, Algeria inaugurated a new pipeline to Spain, but Algeria’s pipeline exports to Europe were 35 percent lower in 2014 than in 2010. By contrast, Norway is not building new pipelines but its exports are steady and its market share is growing (since demand, the denominator, is falling).

The Norwegian government confirmed Wednesday oil and gas reserves were discovered in a North Sea area not known previously to contain hydrocarbons.

U.S. Rig Count is up 3 rigs from last week to 862, with oil rigs up 12 to 640, gas rigs down 9 to 219, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 3.