Russia and Syria are in talks on proposals for the development of oil and natural gas fields in Syria.

Kazakhstan will soon start negotiations on joining a planned pipeline that will pump Russian oil to Europe via Bulgaria and Greece in order to increase Caspian oil exports to Europe, the energy minister said.

The 10 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries bound by the group's output agreements produced an average 26.57 million barrels of crude oil per day in April, a Platts survey showed May 10.

Oil prices have mixed in Asian trade as market focus shifted from the recent attacks on the oil industry in Nigeria to the weekly US energy inventory data.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, the most prominent armed group in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, says it has bombed three oil pipelines. Gilbert da Costa in Abuja has more in this report for VOA.

Nitro Petroleum, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has completed all necessary paperwork required with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in order to become an Operator in the State of Oklahoma.

A 27% oil recovery rate will help Iran produce 5.2m barrels of oil a day by 2009, the Iranian Planning and Management Institute said.

Boosting its status as one of the top oil producers, China has struck its biggest oil discovery in four decades in Bohai Bay having a reserve of one billion tonnes or about 7.35 billion barrels.

Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited has released the information below:

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Wednesday the populist economic policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are not sustainable and eventually will fail. Negroponte begins a four-nation Latin American trip next week. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Iran will take part in the second seminar of oil cooperation among Asian countries.

Venezuela deprived the world's biggest oil companies of operational control over massive Orinoco Belt crude projects on Tuesday.