Regional News

  Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp. has boosted it’s dividend every April for at least a decade, delivering more than $98 billion directly to shareholders. This year, the payout will likely rise again. The open question is by how much. Exxon slowed quarterly dividend growth the last two years as the industry fought through the worst price rout in a generation. ...

  Bloomberg Oil’s recovery is helping ease the pain of shrinking output by China’s biggest energy producers. PetroChina Co., the country’s largest producer, reported first quarter earnings swung to a profit thanks to the surge in prices, even as total output fell 6.3% from a year ago. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the refining giant known as Sinopec, saw net ...

  PARIS / Reuters The oil market is moving towards a balance between supply and demand with the help of an agreement reached between OPEC and other producers to cut production, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco said on Thursday. OPEC, Russia and other producers agreed to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first half ...

  Bloomberg The energy ministers of OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Venezuela plan to meet their Russian counterpart to discuss extending oil-output cuts amid a developing consensus that they should prolong their joint effort to curb supply. Saudi Minister of Energy and Industry Khalid Al-Falih said that he will talk with Russia’s Alexander Novak by phone this week and meet ...

  Bloomberg When Russia’s biggest tanker operator launches four new vessels next year, they won’t just be carrying oil to northern Europe but the hopes of the liquefied natural gas industry. Sovcomflot’s Aframax ships, capable of shifting 600,000 barrels of oil through the icy waters of the Baltic Sea to the port of Rotterdam, will be the first tankers run ...

  BEIRUT / Reuters Lebanon’s government has prequalified eight more companies to bid for its first round of offshore exploration and production licences after prequalifying 46 companies in 2013, Energy and Water Minister Cesar Abou Khalil said on Wednesday. The bidding process for offshore blocks 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10, was postponed for years because of political paralysis in ...

  Bloomberg For Russian oil companies, the historic agreement to boost prices by cutting output in conjunction with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was an easy win. Extending the deal will be less straightforward. Cuts so far this year came alongside the traditional seasonal stagnation in Russian production, meaning the country made relatively few sacrifices in exchange for an ...

  Bloomberg India toppled Japan as the world’s second-largest importer of liquefied petroleum gas as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledge to provide cooking gas cylinders to the poor and wean them off polluting fuels drove up consumption. Imports of LPG, mostly used as cooking fuel, soared 23 percent during the financial year that ended March 31 to 11 million tons, ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia may offer “almost interest-free” loans to companies in labor-intensive industries as part of a plan to stimulate an economy squeezed by low oil prices and spending cuts, Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said. Al-Jadaan, speaking in an interview in Washington, also said the government is on track to slash its budget deficit by 30 percent this year ...

  Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp. won’t be allowed to bypass US sanctions against Russia to resume drilling for oil in a joint venture that seeks to tap billions of barrels of that country’s crude. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the decision was made after consultation with President Donald Trump, according to a statement. Exxon initially requested the drilling waiver in ...