OPEC, for some quiet moments..

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The global oil industry is caught in a self-feeding downward spiral as falling prices cause producers to boost output even further in a scramble to service $3 trillion of dollar debt, the world’s top watchdog has warned. The Bank for International Settlements fears that a perverse dynamic is at work where energy companies in Brazil, Russia, China and parts of the US shale belt are increasing production in defiance of normal market logic, leading to a bad “feedback-loop” that is sucking the whole sector into a destructive vortex.

Oil market spiral threatens to prick global debt bubble, warns BIS - Telegraph

China’s output in 2016 will decline between 3% and 5% from last year’s record 4.3 MMbopd, according to analysts from Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. That would be the first decline in seven years and the biggest drop in records going back to 1990. The country is the world’s fifth-largest producer and biggest consumer after the U.S.

China output seen cracking under pressure of price collapse

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, who made and lost fortunes targeting some of the largest U.S. explorers over the past 40 years, has cashed out as the worst crude market downturn in decades drags on. Pickens has sold all his oil holdings and is waiting for the best moment to get back in, he said Thursday in an interview on “Bloomberg Go.” With prices low, mid-size U.S. oil companies, such as Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Apache Corp., are acquisition targets for larger firms like Exxon Mobil Corp., he said.

T. Boone Pickens cashes out on oil, awaits time to get back in

2015 actually wasn’t all that bad for Gazprom. The giant state gas company posted strong European delivery figures and it saw sizeable growth in both net sales and profit. Of course, for Gazprom, ‘bad’ – as a subjective and cursory metric of appraisal – has an entirely different meaning than it did, say a decade ago, when the company’s market valuation was more than $320 billion higher than it is today. Between the lines, Gazprom’s reliance on Europe has probably never been greater and the broader state of Russia’s economy looms large. To be sure, Gazprom has market-moving capabilities, but its largely reactive strategy leaves little room for error in an increasingly competitive 2016.

Defending Gazprom’s Market Share Will Cost $25 Billion | OilPrice.com