BHI: US rig count continues 11-week dive, loses 98 more units

An independent Dutch safety panel has found that the operators of Europe’s largest natural gas field, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, as well as the Dutch government, for years ignored the dangers posed by earthquakes in the field.

Brent crude oil prices will average $58/bbl in 2015 and $75/bbl in 2016

Crude oil prices moved higher toward the end of January and into the first week of February.

“So, fundamentally, the crisis in oil prices in 2014 – is just a ripple on the water compared to the oversupply tsunami of 1985. The amount of excess capacity is five times less. Operating costs are 2-3 times higher. Instead of a deep drop in demand – a growth is recorded. The rate of decline in marginal production – is ten times higher. There is a clear unbalance between fundamental drivers and the observed price dynamics” - highlighted Rosneft Head.

The United States will remain the world’s top source of oil supply growth up to 2020, even after the recent collapse in prices, the International Energy Agency said, defying expectations of a more dramatic slowdown in shale growth.

EIA expects gasoline demand to increase by nearly 1% in 2015

Saudi Arabia budget insulated from effects of lower oil prices

Russia's Yamal LNG sees global liquefied gas deficit by 2018

The United States and Russia are once more locked in what could be a generation-defining conflict, and Europe is yet again the core battleground. But this Cold War reprise isn’t about military supremacy.

A Deloitte MarketPoint analysis suggested large-field projects, each producing more than 25,000 b/d, could bring on 1.835 million b/d in oil supply this year of which 635,000 b/d would be from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the rest from non-OPEC productions.

The US drilling rig count plunged 87 units, a decline that was again spurred mostly by oil rigs, to settle at 1,456 rigs working during the week ended Feb. 6, Baker Hughes Inc. reported.

Never mind dropping oil prices. U.S. producers are pushing harder than ever for the right to sell U.S. crude oil overseas.

The U.S. federal government, with thousands of facilities and vehicles in locations across the United States and abroad, is one of the largest energy consumers in the world, but that consumption is declining.

European natural gas will probably extend declines as lower prices for the liquefied fuel in Asia, the biggest buying region, mean more cargoes head to Europe, according to Vattenfall AB, the Nordic region’s largest utility.