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Oklahoma is emerging as the next big shale oil play, with production growing faster than in any other U.S. state apart from Texas and North Dakota.

State-of-the-art American fracking technology is coming to China's vast shale deposits as a result of a joint venture between FTS International and Sinopec announced on Tuesday. SinoFTS, as the joint venture will be called, marks an important milestone on the road to exporting the North American shale revolution around the world. FTSI, formerly known as Frac Tech, was one of the first providers more than a decade ago of hydraulic fracturing equipment and services in the Texas Barnett shale, the first shale basin to be developed in the United States. Since then, the company has grown into the largest supplier...

North Dakota's rapidly rising oil output continues to defy the sceptics, who have predicted that production would stop growing as declining output from existing wells offsets extra production from new drilling. Oil production soared to 911,000 barrels per day in August, up more than 200,000 bpd compared with the same month last year, the state's Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said this week. Production is on course to hit 1 million bpd by the end of the year or early 2014, according to the DMR. By the end of August, 9,452 wells were in production. But another 450 had been...

California's lawmakers have ensured the state will remain a major oil and gas producer by approving new legislation allowing hydraulic fracturing and acid treatments to rejuvenate its ageing wells in exchange for strict controls and tougher enforcement. Senate Bill No 4 (SB 4), which Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Sept. 20, directs the state Department of Conservation and other agencies to adopt new rules and regulations covering well construction, fracturing and other well stimulation treatments by the start of 2015. The chemicals used will have to be disclosed to regulators and published, subject to special treatment for trade...

Oil prices sank again on Monday, giving consumers more of a break and causing a split among OPEC leaders about what action should be taken, if any, to halt the slide. The price drop has led to a near free fall in gasoline prices in the United States. On Monday, the national average price for regular gasoline was $3.20, 9 cents lower than it was a week ago and 14 cents below the price a year ago, according to the AAA motor club.

Vulgar chants about Vladimir Putin before he arrived for a regional summit in Belarus did not augur well for the Russian president's hopes of bringing the leaders of former Soviet republics closer together. Matters got even worse when bickering broke out at the start of the meeting, revealing fault lines over the Ukraine crisis and deepening doubts about the future of the loose grouping known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Jibes between Putin and the leader of Moldova, and barbs aimed at the absent Ukrainian leader, raised new questions about his ability to woo countries to the Eurasian Economic...

Crude prices have plunged by more than 20% in recent months. The fall means cheaper gas, cheaper flights, and generally good news for American consumers. Oil prices have been falling for months, and the slide could easily continue. With unprecedented instability in the Middle East, how could this be happening? The answer, according to analysts who follow the market, is a little bit of everything, from economic fundamentals in big oil consuming countries to growth in output among some oil producers. But much more clear is the effect of tumbling prices: Low oil prices are the equivalent of a massive...

Interestingly, an AP reporter yesterday spotted a line of rebels at a Donetsk foreign-exchange shop, trading handfuls of US dollars for Ukrainian currency (as the country's legitimate armed forces approach)... Of course they 'refused to talk to reporters', but the AP guy observed that 'their mood appeared black'. Obviously changing their money over to Ukrainian bills speaks volumes on who they expect to be in charge of the Donbas' largest industrial city (Donetsk) a week from now (seeing as how the Ukrainian Army chased them out of Sloviansk and two other SE cities over the weekend).  But who paid them...

The last 3 months have seen Russia's "de-dollarization" plans accelerate. First Gazprom clients shift to Euros and Renminbi, then the UK signs currency swap agreements with China, then NATO ally Turkey cuts ties and mulls de-dollarization, Switzerland jumps in the currency swap agreements, and BRICS create their own non-US-based funding vehicle, and then finally this week, Russia's oligarchs have shifted cash holdings to Hong Kong. But this week, as RT reports, Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US...

Steep stock market corrections often create shrouds of pessimism that do bad things to people’s brainpower. And one of the absolutely stupidest things I have heard in recent weeks is that the recent drop in oil prices is bad. You heard me right. Serious people on financial television are saying lower oil prices are a signal of worldwide economic collapse. Here at home that translates to recession, deflation, a profits collapse and rising unemployment. I’ve been around for a while, and I’ve seldom heard such gibberish. The latest stock market scare stems from a bunch of fears — such as...

This year's fall in energy prices is hastening the decline of big oil, as the seven Western majors sell-off assets, cut investment, return money to shareholders and shrink in size, leaving ever more output to small producers and state firms. Companies that were already deep in the red when the price of Brent was at $109 a barrel last year are having to redraw business plans for prices as low as $90. With promised shareholder dividends probably untouchable for now, they will have to divest, cut costs and borrow more against a smaller business just to make ends meet. And...

Iran has reduced its oil prices to Asia to its lowest level since December 2008, hard on the heels of a similar Saudi cut last week, people familiar with the pricing said Friday... The National Iranian Oil Co. has cut its light crude oil price for Asian deliveries in November to a discount of 82 cents a barrel below the Oman/Dubai benchmark, the people said. The cut, which compares to a premium of 18 cents in October, is identical to a Saudi reduction of $1 a barrel last week for the Arab Light grade to Asia....

...In almost 20 years of writing about oil markets and the Middle East I have not come across anyone who could consistently offer a deep insight into the government's policymaking.... Diplomats and even some economists often assert Saudi Arabia upholds its part of the bargain, in part, by holding spare production capacity with which to meet disruptions in oil supplies from other producers. Only Saudi Arabia has the financial capability and the foresight to invest in spare capacity to help stabilise global oil prices. The problem is that there is almost no evidence to support this claim. Since the kingdom's...

Despite an administration that has no energy policy, free market forces in the United States are finding a way to provide relief from high prices for an economy that greatly needs the respite. Oil prices are heading the right way for consumers even if the wrong way for the wildcatters, explorers and developers of domestic energy. It’s been planned that way.Now that the worldwide economy is slowing, Saudi Arabia is intent on testing American resolve to become energy independent. The oil-rich kingdom has decided on a price war—a method that would be illegal in the United States—to see if American...

The collapse in oil prices is already a major cause of concern for countries heavily reliant on exports of the commodity. For some, it could be a matter of avoiding a severe recession. Here's why: For governments in oil-exporting countries to meet their spending commitments they need oil to remain above a certain price. With oil prices under $87 a barrel, countries that rely on high oil prices, including Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, may have a reason to be concerned. This chart shows the price per barrel that the six most exposed countries need to meet their national budgets....

A drop in global oil prices, driven in part by a boom in U.S. shale oil production, is threatening to hit the economies of energy-exporting Russia and Iran harder than Western economic sanctions have done.

While it is beyond a doubt that the primary catalyst for Europe's triple-dip recession has been the nearly two quarters and counting of escalating Russian sanctions that were supposed to solely harm Putin (because who could have possibly foreseen that plunging German exports to Russia would have a far greater impact on the export-driven German economy), the truth is that the Kremlin itself is starting to hurt, if not so much as a result of the European trade embargo but mostly due to crashing oil prices, which have been driven lower almost exclusively by Saudi Arabia as part of its...

With oil barely holding on to the $80s, the Kremlin's current leadership faces the same problem they did in the (19)80s: budget revenue half-derived from oil exports, and their backwards, inefficient economy still doesn't produce anything that anybody outside of Mother Russia is willing to spend money on- except perhaps mediocre vodka... And when the self-deluded Russians start babbling about 'greatness' while bullying poor, semi-defenseless countries on the borders of their shabby empire, they tend to get a little caught-up in things... and put the pedal-to-the-medal until they are defeated -i.e. Afghanistan- or simply go-broke, i.e. 1991. Yes, compared...

MOSCOW — Deep into the worst conflict between Russia and the West since the Cold War, investors are fleeing, food prices are soaring and there are rumbles from Russia’s Westernized business elite that the nation needs to avoid repeating the economic mismanagement that broke apart the Soviet Union. Western sanctions have choked off financing to some of Russia’s economic juggernauts and denied crucial technology to the nation’s energy sector. But there is little evidence that the mounting economic pressures since the March annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula will soften Putin’s policies toward Ukraine and other nations in the former Soviet...

Oil prices (along with prices of many other commodities) have fallen dramatically since last summer. Some observers are waiting to see if Saudi Arabia responds with significant cutbacks in production. I say, don’t hold your breath. When oil demand fell in the 1981-82 recession, the Saudis cut production by 6 million barrels a day in an effort to soften the decline in oil prices. They also cut production in response to lower demand in the 2001 recession and the most recent recession. On the other hand, the kingdom boosted production quickly beginning in August 1990 and January 2003 in anticipation...