Oil prices dipped on Friday, with weak demand in focus after the OPEC+ group postponed planned supply increases and extended deep output cuts to the end of 2026. Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down 20 cents, or 0.3%, to $71.89 per barrel at 0910 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 were down 14 cents, or 0.2%, to $68.16 per barrel. For the week, Brent was on track to fall 1.5%, while WTI was on course for a 0.2% gain. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ...

Equinor UK Ltd, a subsidiary of Equinor ASA and Shell UK Limited, a subsidiary of Shell plc are to combine their UK offshore oil & gas assets and expertise to form a new company which will be the UK North Sea’s biggest independent producer. The incorporated joint venture (IJV) will be set up to sustain domestic oil and gas production and security of energy supply in the UK. On deal completion, the new independent producer will be jointly owned by Equinor (50%) and Shell (50%), two leading global energy companies ...

Russia is expected to produce 518-521 million metric tons (10.36-10.42 million barrels per day) of oil this year and roughly the same amount in 2025, Interfax new agency quoted Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying on Thursday. He had forecast output of 515-521 million tons in September. Russia, which curbs supply as part of a deal with other OPEC+ producers, produced 529.6 million tons in 2023 including gas condensate. Novak also said Russia expects to raise its natural gas production in 2024-2025 thanks to higher exports to China, TASS ...

As trading activity in the Platts Market on Close assessment process ramped up in November, continuing the trend from October, 10 cargoes of WTI Midland traded in the assessment process, while three were delivered. S&P Global Commodity Insights continues to closely monitor performance on all these trades as part of its ongoing commitment to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency. Post deal tracking has revealed full performance eventually reached on all trades tracked to date. Pricing and liquidity Price differentials for WTI Midland CIF Rotterdam rose to monthly ...

The floater market has been a bull one the last few years, and rig rates are at decade highs. But the market is showing signs of cooling as operators show capital discipline and appetites for risky projects diminish. Accordingly, Wood Mackenzie has revised our offshore well demand and rig rate forecasts downwards. After two straight years of greater than 20% YOY growth, 2024 rig rates will end the year up only 4% relative to 2023, and 2025 rates will grow at an even more modest rate of 2% YOY, according ...

A single bank sold a large volume of U.S. oil futures contracts in early afternoon trading on Wednesday, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, pushing prices down more than 1% within minutes and causing traders to scramble to decipher the reason. The sale, just hours ahead of an OPEC+ virtual meeting at which the group is expected to extend supply cuts through the end of the first quarter, left traders scrambling to make sense of the rationale for the transaction. The bank sold 4,000 lots of U.S. ...

Russia’s Gazprom on Nov. 28 set its draft investment budget for 2025 at some Rb1.52 trillion ($14 billion), a reduction of some 7% compared with this year’s planned spending. In a statement, Gazprom said next year’s investment budget would provide funds for financing priority projects, including the expansion of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline. Funds would also be used for the further development of gas production centers in eastern Russia and on the Yamal Peninsula, as well as the continued gasification of Russian regions. “The approved financial plan will ...

BP’s Tangguh LNG Train 3 is expected to return to normal operation within a fewdays following a disruption last month, a spokesperson of Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas regulatorSKK Migas said on Thursday. BP was conducting repairs and parts replacement at the facility in West Papua following instrumentation issues at an onshore receiving facility in mid November. The Train 3 is currently ramping up production and should return to normal in one or two days, Hudi Suryodipuro of SKK Migas told Reuters. The third train of LNG Tangguh, which has ...

The collapse of Germany’s governing coalition risks delaying a draft law on waiving a costly gas storage levy for foreign buyers from next year and raising tension with European neighbours that face higher prices. Supply security is already worrying European governments as cold weather has pushed gas prices to their highest in nearly 13 months, and a Russian transit deal to supply gas to Europe via Ukraine expires at the end of the year. Germany’s gas neutrality charge, which storage operator Trading Hub Europe (THE) receives for gathering and releasing ...

All regions in Japan are forecast to experience temperatures below the 30-year average over the next month from Dec. 7, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Dec. 5, boosting demand for power generation and heating. The latest month-long weather forecast follows a Nov. 28 weather outlook forecasting 30-year-average temperatures over Nov. 30-Dec. 29. Japan is entering its peak power and heating demand season with local power and gas utilities generally well prepared and not actively buying spot winter cargoes, market sources said. Despite a drop in temperatures since late November, LNG ...

OPEC+ has agreed to delay plans to raise oil output until April from January 2025 and the group will also take one extra year to fully unwind the cuts by the end of 2026, OPEC sources said. OPEC+, which pumps about half the world’s oil, had been planning to start unwinding cuts from October 2024 but a slowdown in global demand and rising output outside the group forced it to postpone the plans on several occasions. OPEC+ groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia. ...

Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft ROSN.MM, said on Thursday that the OPEC+ group’s decisions to reduce oil output in 2016 and 2020 helped the U.S. shale industry and made it a leading global energy exporter. Sechin, speaking at a forum in the United Arab Emirates, said Russia and its partners have made the main contributions to the global energy market stabilisation in the past 10 years. A long-standing ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sechin has previously expressed scepticism about Russia’s cooperation with the OPEC, ...

OPEC+ delayed a planned increase in output further into next year as it faces a weaker oil demand outlook. The oil producer group agreed a complex deal in June to extend their deep production cuts well into 2025. It has since made changes to the agreement, allowing the group to postpone a planned increase in output by three months until the beginning of next year. Below is an explainer on how the latest cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, work: OPEC+ members ...

Asia’s middle distillates markets remained thinly discussed, with traders awaiting January spot activity to be in full bloom the next few trading sessions. Traders held mixed views on the diesel/gasoil demand-supply balance in the next two months, with most expecting it to hinge on the weather situation in the west – though the east-west arbitrage price spread was at its narrowest in slightly more than three months. On the jet fuel/kerosene front, traders were slightly more positive given production issues at Japan-based refineries ahead of some scheduled maintenance – though ...

Oil prices rose on Thursday after OPEC+ decided to delay its planned output increase by three months to April 2025, and extend the full unwind of production cuts by a year until the end of 2026. Brent crude was up 38 cents, or 0.53%, to $72.69 a barrel at 10:56 a.m. ET, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 36 cents, or 0.53%, to $68.90 a barrel. OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus allies including Russia, had been planning to start unwinding cuts from October 2024 but ...