Eni has obtained a three-year extension from the Angolan authorities to the exploration period of the prolific Block 15/06, located in Angola’s offshore, approximately 350 kilometres north-west of the capital Luanda and 130 kilometres east of Soyo townThe original exploration period expired in November 2014 and Eni requested an extension in order to complete the exploration activities already identified.

Companies in the deepwater drilling market have lost more than half of their value over the last year; Transocean, Seadrill, ENSCO and Diamond are currently priced 56% lower on average compared to January 2014 in line with the decrease in oil prices, Douglas-Westwood, an energy market intelligence company, wrote in its DW Monday report.

Exxon Mobil Corporation and Rosneft have started oil production at the Sakhalin-1 project’s Arkutun-Dagi field – the last of the three fields to be developed.

Det norske oljeselskap ASA (Det norske) and partners of the PL 340 license have announced start-up of production from the Bøyla field located in the North Sea.

Det norske is planning a US$238 million development for the Viper-Kobra fields near Alvheim in production license (PL) 203, in the central North Sea, off Norway.

Japan’s oil company Inpex announced on January 16, 2015 first oil started flowing at the Lucius Oil Field, in the US Gulf of Mexico.

Schlumberger bosses today warned that if the company continues to make financial losses in the first half of this year, more North Sea oil jobs were likely to go.

A US federal judge ruled this week that BP’s maximum fine under America's Clean Water Act for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be £9billion, far lower than the US governments previous estimate of £11.

9,000 workers have lost their jobs at Schlumberger the largest oil and gas services company globally.

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the UK, Rt Hon Edward Davey MP, visited Aberdeen yesterday afternoon for talks with oil and gas industry leaders against a backdrop of the recent dramatic slide in world oil prices.