DUBAI, June 5 (Reuters) – Russia’s Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) will
join the United Arab Emirate’s Crescent Petroleum in a gas
concession in the emirate of Sharjah, Crescent said on
Saturday, the first Middle East foray for the Kremlin’s oil
arm.

State-run Rosneft pumps over a fifth of Russia’s oil and is
the largest oil company in the world’s top crude producer.
Crescent is a privately-held energy firm based in Sharjah, in
the north of the UAE.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Russia’s top energy official said on Saturday he expects Russia to have stricter rules for offshore oil and gas drilling after BP’s oil spill.

“From our side, we will have stricter requirements for ecological safety,” Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told reporters on a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

MUSCAT, May 26 (Reuters) – Oil major BP <BP.L> will start
early production from tight gas fields in Oman in August, a
senior Omani energy official said on Wednesday.

BP signed a concession in 2007 to develop the tight gas,
which is in complex formations that are difficult to exploit. It
aims to pump gas from appraisal wells to the Omani grid, which
is short of gas to meet the demands of power and industry.

DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) – The UAE’s Crescent Petroleum has
teamed up with Russia’s state-run oil producer Rosneft <ROSN.MM>
to purse oil and gas deals in the Middle East and North Africa,
Crescent said in a statement on Wednesday.

Rosneft pumps over a fifth of Russia’s oil, and is the
country’s largest producer. Crescent is a privately-held energy
firm based in the emirate of Sharjah, in the northern UAE.

DOHA, May 10 (Reuters) – Swiss-registered firms involved in
Libya’s energy projects can be replaced with little disruption
to its upstream developments, Tripoli’s top oil official said on
Monday.

Libya slapped a trade embargo on Switzerland in March as
tensions between the two escalated following the arrest of
leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Hannibal in 2008 on charges –
later dropped — of mistreating two domestic staff.

DOHA (Reuters) – OPEC’s Secretary General said on Sunday global oil markets were oversupplied, but it was too early to talk about the producer group taking action to halt the sharp price fall sparked by the euro zone debt crisis.

U.S. crude oil futures settled at $75.11 a barrel on Friday, posting their largest weekly loss in almost a year and a half, on concern Europe’s problems could derail global economic recovery.

DOHA (Reuters) – OPEC’s Secretary General said on Sunday global oil markets were oversupplied, but it was too early to talk about the producer group taking action to halt the sharp price fall sparked by the euro zone debt crisis.

U.S. crude oil futures settled at $75.11 a barrel on Friday, posting their largest weekly loss in almost a year and a half, on concern Europe’s problems could derail global economic recovery.

DOHA (Reuters) – The sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe and the potential for China to tighten fiscal policy were among the biggest risks to global oil demand, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Sunday.

“Europe is still under a certain turmoil,” the IEA’s Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told Reuters in an interview. “If there is contagion from Greece and economic growth worldwide is not as good as expected, that would have a substantial impact on oil demand.”

DOHA (Reuters) – Iraq plans to boost power capacity to 27,000 megawatts in four years after opening its gas sector to foreign investment and sealing a gas capture deal with Royal Dutch Shell, a minister said on Sunday.

The OPEC member would need to invest at least $3 billion to $4 billion per year to reach that target, Iraq’s Electricity Minister Karim Waheed told Reuters on Sunday.

DOHA, May 9 (Reuters) – Global oil markets are oversupplied
but OPEC thinks it is too early for the group to take action to
halt a recent decline in prices as fallout from the euro zone
debt crisis sets in.

OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said on Sunday
global oil markets were oversupplied, urging greater compliance
among members of the group.