U.S. oil drillers pulled rigs this week as crude traded below $60 a barrel for the seventh straight day.

The main outcome of Putin’s visit to Turkey was the announcement that the $40 billion South Stream gas pipeline project would be cancelled. The effects of this cancellation on Russia and Turkey differ, even though the project was interpreted as a rapprochement of their strategic visions.

Over and over again, they keep insisting on their Third Energy Package, which the Russian leaders refer to as ‘a very harmful document’, and want Gazprom to unbundle its gas supplying, transporting and marketing businesses; share pipeline space with other gas producers; obey independent regulators and transmission operators; and drop manipulations with prices.

Shale gas was supposed to be Ukraine’s ticket to greater energy independence from Russia. Chevron Corp. (CVX)’s decision to pull the plug has smashed those hopes.

America’s oil and gas boom was enabled by a huge pile of cheap financing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced new Western sanctions against Ukraine's Crimea region on Saturday as a "collective punishment" on local residents who voted in a referendum last March to join Russia.

The IEA Oil Market Report for December cut the outlook for 2015 global oil demand growth by 230 000 barrels per day (230 kb/d) to 0.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) on lower expectations for the Former Soviet Union and other oil‐exporting countries.

For now it is only a distant rumble, but many oil executives and advisers believe they can hear it coming: a gusher of oil deals that is set to erupt next year.

Crude oil prices are poised to fall below half where they were six months ago, before producers begin dealing with a global glut.

Мы ожидаем, что цены на нефть будут находиться на уровне в среднем 80 долл. за баррель в следующие три года. Такое значение средней цены следует из консенсус-прогноза ведущих аналитиков.

North Sea Brent crude oil spot prices fell by more than 15% in November, declining from $85/barrel (bbl) on November 3 to $72/bbl on November 28. Monthly average Brent crude oil prices have declined 29% from their 2014 high of $112/bbl in June to an average of $79/bbl in November, the lowest monthly average since September 2010. The November price decline reflects continued growth in U.S. tight oil production along with weakening outlooks for the global economy and oil demand growth. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision in late November to maintain its current crude oil production target, despite lower oil prices, put additional downward pressure on price expectations.

'Contraction unavoidable’ as oil prices fall

EIA expects U.S. crude oil production to average 9.3 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2015, up 0.7 million bbl/d from 2014

Crude oil prices extended their slump on the New York market with a Dec. 11 settlement of less than $60/bbl for January, and prices continued downward in early Dec. 12 trading after the International Energy Agency cut its global oil demand growth forecast for 2015.

Rosneft and Essar Agreed on Key Terms of Oil and Oil Products Supplies to Essar Refineries