
One casualty of the oil price downturn could be the megaproject. For years, as conventional oil reserves depleted and became increasingly hard to find, oil companies ventured into far-flung locales to find new sources of production.

Brazilian officials are investigating allegations that Petrobras overpaid hundreds of millions of dollars for the Pasadena, Texas, refinery and funneled money into a massive kickback scheme that's led to dozens of convictions and arrests and fueled calls for the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, who chaired the company until 2010.

Argentina's state-run energy company YPF said on Friday it plans to focus on boosting natural gas production in 2016, while also pursuing a gradual reduction in drilling and completion costs and looking for more partnerships for shale and tight play projects. It also admitted that potential investors are waiting for post-election clarity on economic and energy policies before making any decisions.

Brazilian union leaders say stronger than expected support for a strike at Petrobras is due to growing worker opposition to a creeping privatization of the state oil company. The strike, which began on Sunday, has become the biggest stoppage in two decades at Petrobras and shows workers back union efforts to renationalize the company and cut foreign participation in the oil industry, union leaders say.

Oil workers staging a national strike in Brazil said on Monday they had stopped all operations at 22 of state-controlled oil giant Petrobras's 44 rigs in the Campos basin, an offshore area that accounts for about 80% of the country's oil output. Oil workers declared a strike on Sunday.

Petrobras’ move to start buying processed U.S. condensate will help output at its domestic refining network, but the purchases have exposed a wrinkle in Brazilian law that could allow the state-run company to import the light oil duty-free, tax lawyers and traders said. Typically, condensate is considered a very light form of crude found in oil or natural gas wells and in raw form is not taxable in Brazil.

Three Falkland Islands sports clubs benefitted from the generosity of local business Argos Ltd with a donation of £25,000 via the Overseas Games Association (FIOGA).

Brazil's largest oil union began an open-ended strike on Sunday, protesting against attempts by the government to shrink the state-run oil company Petrobras, which is reeling from a corruption crisis and a crash in the oil price.

Humpback is the first well to encounter oil in the potentially larger systems in deeper waters off the southeast of the Falkland Islands; however the oil and gas across a number of reservoir targets in the well drilled to a depth of 5.136 meters, were in non-commercial quantities.

Noble Energy with interests in Falklands' exploration, has commenced production from the Big Bend oil development in Mississippi Canyon 698 of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Noble and partners expect the single-well field to reach a maximum gross production rate of approximately 20,000 boe/d over the next couple of weeks. Approximately 90% of the volumes being produced from Big Bend are oil, Noble said.