“Currently, they have their sights firmly on the Americas, having expressed interest in future gas projects in Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia, among others.”

The push into Asia comes at a pivotal moment in Saudi Arabia. With oil revenue falling, the kingdom is tightening its belt just as a new king ventures away from the kingdom’s traditionally conservative diplomacy. The International Monetary Fund predicts a budget deficit exceeding 20 percent of economic output this year.

Flexibility and the ability to survive through the price cycle are more important to oil producers and consumers than flaky forecasts about where prices are going over the next 3, 5 or 10 years.

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.

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.

Canada’s oil and gas companies have eliminated at least 40,000 jobs this year, the industry’s lobby group estimates, while companies have curtailed spending. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the nation’s largest heavy oil producer, will rely on cash flow to cover its capital spending next year after eliminating C$3.2 billion ($2.4 billion) from its 2015 budget. Blackpearl Resources Inc., a small operator, will spend only C$15 million next year, a fraction of the C$235 million the company spent in 2014.

LNG to northeast Asia, home to the world’s biggest consumers, plunged 27% this year, outpacing Brent’s 23% slump as of Wednesday. While analyst estimates show that crude will recover in 2016, prices for the super-chilled fuel will probably extend declines by as much as 23%.

Having reviewed the oil market outlook for 2015, and the projections for 2016, the Conference observed that global economic growth is currently at 3.1% in 2015 and is forecast to expand by 3.4% next year. In terms of supply and demand, it was noted that non-OPEC supply is expected to contract in 2016, while global demand is anticipated to expand again by 1.3 mb/d.

“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,”

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.

Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, has fallen 40 per cent over the past year, decimating the budgets of Opec’s weaker members like Angola and Venezuela. The price crash has slowed the growth of US shale, Canada’s tar sands and other sources of high-cost oil but the market remains oversupplied by at least 1m barrels a day.

“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.

Depressed oil prices are likely to linger longer as analysts dropped their predictions further for next year, according to a Reuters poll, assuming OPEC will not cut output when it meets on Friday.

“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.

“We are interested to come back to Iran when the sanctions are lifted and if the contracts are interesting,” Stephane Michel, Total’s head of exploration and production in the Middle East said at the conference. “We have worked in this country for a long time, so we know specific fields on which we’ve worked.”