Exxon Mobil Corporation announced today its affiliate, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Turkey B.V., has signed an agreement with Turkish national oil company, Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortakl??? (TPAO), to explore in two large deepwater blocks offshore Turkey, marking ExxonMobil’s entry into Black Sea exploration.
ExxonMobil will become operator during the initial exploration phase and earn a [...]

General Maritime Corporation jointly announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby the two companies will combine in a stock- for-stock combination. Under the terms of the definitive agreement, approved unanimously by the Boards of Directors of both General Maritime and Arlington Tankers, shareholders of General Maritime will receive 1.340 shares of [...]

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez suggested that a growing dispute over the cancellation of a U.S. company’s oil exploration contracts could damage Ukraine’s reputation with foreign investors.
Gutierrez spoke to business leaders in Kiev a day after President Viktor Yushchenko ordered his top security advisory council to sort out the dispute involving the Texas-based Vanco Energy Co.
He [...]

Ukraine is canceling a contract with a U.S. oil company planning to explore for oil and gas on the Black Sea underwater shelf.
The government says the production-sharing agreement that was signed in 2006 with the subsidiary of Texas-based Vanco Energy Co. is “plundering Ukraine’s mineral reserves.”
Last month, Ukraine revoked Vanco’s license, and Prime Minister Yulia [...]

A 32-year-old Ukrainian oligarch is planning to launch his $2bn (£1.01bn) iron ore mining group on London’s main market next month. The flotation will be the first full UK listing for a company from the former Soviet republic.
Konstantin Zhevago plans to raise around $500bn by selling a quarter of his holding in Ferrexpo, a mining [...]

Toreador Resources Corporation and its joint venture partners TPAO (the Turkish national oil company) and Stratic Energy Corporation today announced the successful test of the uppermost of three zones in the Akcakoca-4 well. The flow test resulted in a flow rate of approximately 18.9 million cubic feet of gas per day (MMCFD) with a flowing [...]

Crude oil tumbled for a second day on forecasts that warm U.S. weather will curb demand from the world’s largest energy consumer and bolster inventories that are already above average.
Higher-than-usual temperatures are expected in most of the U.S. from Nov. 7 until Nov. 13, the National Weather Service reported. U.S. crude inventories, already 12 percent [...]

The Russian aluminum company Rusal on Monday announced a three-way merger to create the world’s biggest aluminum producer, dethroning the U.S. aluminum maker Alcoa and underscoring the rise of Russia’s commodity-based industries against a backdrop of rising prices.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rusal, which is controlled by the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, will issue [...]

Shelton Canada says the West Birjuchja No. 1 well in the Sea of Azov offshore Ukraine is currently drilling ahead. The well has reached a depth of 1,000 meters and the planned total depth is 1,700 meters.
The well was spudded on May 9th.
Shelton has a 50 percent interest in the West Birjuchja well. It is [...]