A US hedge fund manager has confirmed he is in talks to provide funding for the purchase of Russian bankrupt Yukos’ foreign assets won by a former unit of state oil group Rosneft in an auction last week.

Oil prices dropped Monday (August 20) on expectations a strong Atlantic hurricane will spare key oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

China and Kazakhstan agreed yesterday (August 19) to expand an oil pipeline that will link China to the Caspian Sea.

China's Ministry of Land and Resources has certified the discovery of 445 million tons of proven oil reserves in the newly discovered Jidong Nanpu oil field in Bohai Bay, bringing the total possible oil and gas reserves to 1.18 billion tons of oil equivalent.

Foster Agblevor, associate professor of biological systems engineering, is leading the team of researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (www.cals.vt.edu) at Virginia Tech (www.vt.edu) developing transportable pyrolysis units that will convert poultry litter into bio-oil, providing an economical disposal system while reducing environmental effects and biosecurity issues.

Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. Announces Agreement to Acquire Additional Williston Basin Acreage in Mountrail County, North Dakota

Alexander Ananenkov, Acting Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee has moderated a meeting in the Company’s Central Office on gas balance parameters till 2020 held on the threshold of a meeting of the Russian Government Commission for the Fuel and Energy Sector scheduled for this fall.

Russian gas exports to Europe fell 12 percent in the first half of 2007 after an unusually warm last winter, Gazprom said.

Emergency response teams have contained a fire that broke out in a crude unit at the Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, at approximately 2:15 p.m. CDT today (August 16).

Gas Prices Continue Downward March

A former unit of Russian oil company Rosneft yesterday paid $305m for assets owned by bankrupt Russian oil giant Yukos in a sale the latter said was tantamount to buying the "emperor's new clothes".

Dana Gas, the UAE's first private sector regional natural gas company, has achieved operating profits for the first half year, with total revenues for the six months ended June 30, 2007 rising to Dh443 million from 171 days of gas production operations, resulting in gross operating cash profit of Dh226 million.