OPEC, for some quiet moments..

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For years, debates in the OPEC conference room were dominated by clashes between top producer Saudi Arabia and arch-rival Iran. But as the two managed to find a rare compromise on Wednesday - with Riyadh softening its stance towards Tehran - a third OPEC superpower emerged. Iraq overtook Iran as the group's second-largest producer several years ago but kept its OPEC agenda fairly low-profile. On Wednesday, Baghdad finally made its presence felt. What it did, however, pleased neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran. Iraq's new oil minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi told his Saudi and Iranian counterparts, Khalid al-Falih and Bijan Zanganeh, in a closed-door gathering in Algiers that "it was an OPEC meeting for all ministers", a source briefed on the talks said. Luaibi also said he didn't like the idea of re-establishing OPEC's output ceiling at 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd), according to sources in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Iraq's OPEC revolt shows Saudi-Iran oil deal fragility | Reuters

Oil analysts, many of whom were surprised by OPEC’s decision on Wednesday to set out the framework of a deal to limit oil production, remain split about the impact of the producer group’s plan.

Oil Analysts Remain OPEC Skeptics as Pump-at-Will Policy Ditched - Bloomberg

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided that Act 13, the state Legislature’s 2012 attempt to accommodate the shale gas industry is an unconstitutional “special law” that benefits specific groups or industries. The court, in a decision Wednesday, said Act 13’s provisions limiting notification of spills and leaks to public water suppliers but not to private well owners, and its so-called “physician gag order” restricting health care professionals from getting information about drilling chemicals that could harm their patients, violate the state Constitution’s prohibition against such special laws.

High court strikes down Pa. law on shale gas

That's because oil majors' urgent mission to slash costs includes standardizing the components used in drilling for oil–a development that has helped turn unprofitable wells into moneymakers, protected bottom lines, and allowed companies to keep pumping even in the face of crude prices that have more than halved over the past three years. “One might wonder how it is possible that with expenditures being cut dramatically in the upstream industry, output is still growing in many parts of the non-OPEC world while the costs of future projects are declining,” analysts at JBC Energy GmbH wrote earlier this year. “One of the key topics in this respect is industry standardization.”

How Actual Nuts and Bolts Are Bringing Down Oil Prices - Bloomberg