Oil, Energy | featured news

China's top offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd has entered into an agreement to buy Canada's Nexen Inc for about $15.1 billion, the Chinese company said on Monday.

Obscure private firms are offering Iranian crude oil at steep discounts to European oil traders as Tehran seeks ways to restore oil export flows hit by Western sanctions.

Arctic oil ambitions ran into new problems Saturday evening when the Discoverer drilling rig, slated to begin exploratory operations in the Chukchi Sea next month, ran adrift in stiff winds in Alaska’s Dutch Harbor and came perilously close to the beach.

The United Arab Emirates opens and begins operating a key overland pipeline which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, controlled by Iran. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait at the mouth of the Gulf, a vital oil-trade route.

Iran's Oil Minister says his office has drawn up plans to make newly tightened sanctions against the Islamic Republic ineffective.

The United States and China signaled a willingness on Thursday to work together on "sensitive issues" in a move to cool tensions between rival claimants to the potentially oil-rich and increasingly militarized South China Sea.

Iran has reached agreements with European refiners to sell some of its oil through a private consortium, an official said on Saturday, a move designed to circumvent sanctions intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear program.

Iran's daily oil exports in July could fall below half the average shipped in 2011 before tough new Western sanctions stemmed the flow.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the latest EU sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil are "the strongest" measures yet imposed on the country.

Top oil producer Russia is on course for its highest output in the post-Soviet era this year helped by new fields after a 1.1 percent rise in the first half, Energy Ministry data showed on Monday.