A court in Moscow has sentenced two former managers at the bankrupt oil company Yukos to long prison terms for embezzlement and money laundering.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has ordered the nationalization of oil projects run by foreign companies in Venezuela's Orinoco River region.

Iraq's cabinet has approved a draft oil law and will submit it to parliament for approval.

Russian prosecutors say jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business associate, Platon Lebedev, organized the theft of oil worth $32 billion.

Oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill persists in an only slightly weathered form below the surface at some beaches along the Gulf of Alaska after 16 years and may persist for decades, researchers have concluded in a new report. It is scheduled for publication in the Feb. 15 issue of the ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

The European Commission is due today to unveil a wide-ranging vision of a common energy policy for the 27-country European Union.

Despite its wealth of oil and natural-gas reserves, Iran has faced a gas crunch as people turn up the heat this winter.

OPEC is under pressure to cut oil production. Dramatic changes could bring new developments around OPEC.

Europe could face oil shortage due to Belarus and Russia dispute over oil prices. So called "Drujba" ( Rus. Friendship) oil pipe become subject to trade war.

Russian environmental control agency RosPrirodNadzor measures the environmental damage of Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in Sakhalin Island. A full account of it will be ready in summer 2007.