Norway’s Seadrill said today that it has exercised its right to repurchase the jack-up drilling rig West Ceres from Ship Finance International for the pre-agreed price of $135.5 million, and will subsequently re-sell the unit for $175.

Indonesian state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina is submitting a new bid for an oil block in Iraq and will team up with Australia’s Woodside Petroleum to bid for a gas project in Indonesia.

A consortium in which Pertamina was a member has withdrawn its bid for the West Qurna oil block in Iraq as the terms offered on the development were not sufficiently attractive, a company executive said yesterday.

Iraq plans to bring forward a second bidding round for major energy contracts, a spokesman said today, adding Baghdad may also give foreign players another chance to bid for oilfields that were not awarded during an energy auction this week.

An oil price above $100 a barrel would hurt the global economy, Kuwait's oil minister said today.

Nearly thirty people are feared dead after an offshore support vessel capsized and sank off Qatar.

Iraq is still negotiating with Japan's Nippon Oil and Italy’s Eni over the huge Nassiriya oilfield, Iraqi oil officials said yesterday.

Indonesia’s Pertamina is exploring a joint bid with two other partners for West Qurna block onshore Iraq.

Iraq faces regulatory, administrative and political barriers that will prevent it from major oil production expansion for at least five years, David Fyfe, the head of the International Energy Agency's Oil Industry and Markets Division, said today.

The club of major gas producers fretted over sagging demand and prices at talks today, but the loose grouping is far from having the power and collective will to do anything to tighten the market.

US supermajor ExxonMobil and Malaysian state-run producer Petronas have put in the highest bid for the super giant Rumaila oilfield in Baghdad's first bid round since the 2003 US-led invasion.

The Guardian Council, Iran’s top electoral body, confirmed incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the presidential election after a partial recount.

US supermajor Chevron has begun its first steam injection at a steam flood project in the Wafra Field heavy-oil carbonate reservoir in the onshore neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (PNZ).

Iraqi Vice President Tareq Hashemi will boycott an auction to award contracts for eight oil and gas fields, due to be held tomorrow, saying parliament needs more time to study the country's first major oil tender since 2003.

Poland hopes its liquefied natural gas deal with Qatar, agreed in April and officially signed today, may eventually supply more than 1 million tonnes of LNG per year, Minister of State for the Treasury Aleksander Grad said.

Unrest in Iran since the presidential elections earlier this month has not affected the operations of its domestic energy sector or dealings with foreign oil companies, a senior oil official said today.

A group of Japanese companies led by refiner Nippon Oil is in the final stage of talks to win a $10 billion development contract for Iraq's huge Nassiriya oilfield, a Japanese newspaper reported today.

Japan has concluded a basic agreement with the United Arab Emirates to start receiving oil from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) to help stock up its oil reserves, the government said today.

Sinopec is set to shell out C$8.27 billion (US$7.24 billion) for Addax Petroleum after the Canadian-based outfit gave the nod to the Chinese giant's C$52.80 per share takeover offer.

Austrian player OMV has resisted Iranian pressure to push ahead with investment in phase 12 of the South Pars project, with a company executive saying the company is prepared to be dropped as a partner rather than be forced to pump money into the development now.

Iraqi plans to raise oil output to 6 million barrels per day by 2017 are likely to be over optimistic, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, adding that oil capacity could fall over the next two years.

Spanish producer Repsol YPF and Croatia's INA are interested in a block on offer in Jordan's latest licensing round, according to reports.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani was summoned to parliament today to answer criticism about plans to award major energy contracts next week, deals which some lawmakers have vowed to derail.

Iraq has said talks with producers, including Italian giant Eni, to develop the Nassiriya field will take a backseat until after the country’s first licensing round ends this month.