Five East European countries have agreed to build an oil pipeline linking the Black Sea and Baltic Sea. Officials of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania signed the agreement Wednesday in Lithuania's capital Vilnius.

A bomb exploded Friday under an oil pipeline south of Baghdad, spilling crude oil and sparking a huge fire, Iraqi police said.

Russian oil to be transported to southeastern Europe after Bulgaria's parliament ratified Wednesday a trilateral agreement for the construction and exploitation of a pipeline.

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 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.

Government officials from Armenia, Iran and Russia will meet soon to discuss an ambitious idea to build a big oil refinery on the Armenian-Iranian border that would cater for the Iranian market.