Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, is targeting $15.1 billion in disposals by the end of next year but has struggled to sell assets in less attractive prospects off Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Output from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 230,100 barrels a day in November to 31.695 million a day, the highest since April 2012, as surging Iraqi volumes more than offset a slight pullback in Saudi Arabia. The organization is pumping about 900,000 barrels a day more than it anticipates will be needed next year.

The company also expects to close $2.3 billion of noncore asset sales, including $600 million from transactions that closed through the first three quarters of 2015. The remaining $1.7 billion represents deals with agreements in place that are expected to close in fourth-quarter 2015 or first-quarter 2016.

The $23 billion in downstream projects would enable a 7 million-tonne/year reduction in the Mexico’s carbon dioxide emissions.

“This compares to $2.3 billion in 2015, so a nearly 60% cut. This is one of the steepest 2016 spending cuts we’ve seen across oil and gas producers.”

Halliburton and Baker Hughes, which do the physical work of drilling wells and extracting oil and natural gas for energy companies, trail only Schlumberger Ltd. in the marketplace.

Turkish state pipeline company BOTAS imported 33.06 billion cubic meters of gas from various sources in Jan.-Oct. 2015, compared to 31.73 billion cubic meters in the same period of 2014.

The 180-km (110-mile) pipeline will be built by a Bulgarian-Greek joint venture that also includes Italian energy group Edison SpA.

The agreement will involve the development of five trillion cubic feet of gas resources, as well as 55 million barrels of condensates. Production from WND is expected to be around 1.2 billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d) and all the produced gas will be fed into Egypt's national gas grid.

Statoil and Repsol announce transactions in Norway, UK, US and Brazil

"These assets are profitable, well maintained and are an important part of New Zealand's energy mix," Shell New Zealand Chairman Rob Jager said in a statement Thursday. "The Shell business in New Zealand is great, but a small part of the global Shell business and hence the decision to undertake a strategic review at this time."

Russia is against an increase in global crude production, rather than favouring a reduction, and remains pessimistic about the possibility of Moscow and Riyadh reaching a production coordination deal, Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak said Thursday. "We are in favor of, not a cut, but of countries not increasing their output, so that demand, which is growing year-by-year, is covered by the oversupply that exists in the market," Novak said.

U.S. Rig Count is down 28 rigs from last week to 709, with oil rigs down 21 to 524, and gas rigs down 7 to 185.

As Mexican heavy crude oil exports to the United States have decreased, increasing volumes have been sold to Asian markets, especially India, and to a lesser extent South Korea and Japan.

By 2035 global energy consumption increases by 37% from today’s levels with virtually all (96%) the growth in non-OECD countries and more than half coming from India and China.

Of Mr. Albayrak, Aaron Stein offers, “I think you have a new Turkish Energy Minister who is very close to Erdogan, speaks for Erdogan, coming into the cabinet, who may take a very hard line on Turkey's push to decrease the cost of the country's gas import bill, from Iran and Russia.”

Iran has agreed a $3 billion contract with a consortium of Indian companies to develop the Farzad B gas field in the Persian Gulf, according to the Mehr news agency. The managing director of ONGC Videsh, the Indian company heading the partnership, said they had not yet been notified about the development.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it would cut about 2,800 jobs to meet a pledge of reducing operating costs by $3.5 billion following its takeover of BG Group Plc.

Brent LCOc1, the global benchmark, was at $37.74 at 0440 GMT, down 18 cents from its last settlement after rising slightly earlier on Tuesday.

The situation is complicated further by ISIS operating largely on a cash basis, making it difficult to impose sanctions, the witnesses said. Financial pressure could be applied on entities and governments in adjacent countries that do business with the group.