Cuba and Russia have signed an agreement to allow Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft to explore for and produce oil in Cuba in their first post-Soviet oil pact. Both countries have made a push to revive ties in recent months.
Rebels of The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) say they have ended a 90-day ceasefire and warn oil firms and the military of renewed attacks.
In what is seen as a victory for press freedom in the UK, lawyers for an oil trading firm which allegedly dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast have withdrawn an attempt to prevent the media from publishing an MP’s question tabled in parliament.
French energy companies Total and GDF Suez will respectively take 17 percent and 8 percent of the Kazakh gas field project Khvalynskoye. The deal is supposed to be signed during an official visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Kazakhstan.
The last significant militant commander in the oil-rich Niger Delta region has surrendered his weapons in return for an unconditional pardon. Defence Minister Godwin Abbe said it was, “the beginning of the development of the Niger Delta.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that China had agreed to invest 16 billion dollars over the next three years in an oil project in the Orinoco basin, a resource-rich region in eastern Venezuela.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is nothing if not a controversial figure. Having just completed a world tour meeting allies of Venezuela, Chavez continues to stir up opposition at home and in the US, though popularity polls give him 57 percent.
Venezuela's controversial president Hugo Chavez is again making waves - this time during a characteristically provocative tour that has taken him, among other places, to Libya, Syria and Iran.
President Hugo Chavez announced at the end of a visit to Iran on Sunday that Venezuela will export 20,000 barrels of petrol per day to the Islamic republic. Oil-rich Iran imports some 40 percent of its petrol because it lacks refining capacity.
