The Iranian authorities announced yesterday their decision to join the Nabucco pipeline project.
The project is intended to pump 20-30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from Central Asia under the Caspian Sea, then through Azerbaijan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.

The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan met on Monday with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller discussing oil and gas related issues of mutual interest and an oil refinery construction in Armenia, the estimated cost of which is expected to surpass $2 Billion U.S. dollars.

A dreadful explosion rocked an oil refinery in Texas. A violent blast shook buildings kilometers away Monday morning. At least one person injured.

Iraqi officials say they are formulating a plan to deal with the country's widespread energy shortages. Iraq is believed to have the third largest reserves of oil in the world, but years of fighting, sabotage, and looting have set back efforts to exploit its energy resources. Daniel Schearf reports from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.

Officials in Ecuador say Venezuela is to help them build a $5 billion oil refinery that will become operational in 2012.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec), supplier of two-thirds of the nation's auto fuels, plans to spend about 16 billion yuan expanding plants in central China, a company official said.

Steel baron Lakshmni Mittal and French oil major Total have signed an agreement with state-run HPCL for jointly setting up a six billion dollar refinery- cum petrochemical complex at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe proposed a plan to Saudi Arabia to let the country use part of the state-owned oil storage tanks in Okinawa Prefecture in exchange for a preferential right to purchase the oil reserves there in case of emergency.

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.