
Vice President Amado Boudou brushed aside ‘Repsol-YPF nationalization rumours’ and said Argentina is interested in oil companies that make long term investments and don’t fall prey of short term financial profits.

Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petrobras announced last week it had struck good-quality light oil in the Solimoes Basin, in the state of Amazonas.

Royal Dutch Shell has said it will launch a major investment drive in an effort to boost falling production. The oil giant said it would spend 30bn dollars on new oil and gas projects this year, compared with 24bn in 2011.

A new round of Falkland Islands oil exploration began this week when London AIM listed Borders & Southern Petroleum plc announced that their first exploration well, located approximately 140 kilometres south of the Islands, was spudded on 31st January 2012.

Brazil's state-run energy giant Petrobras on Tuesday reported that 160 barrels of crude oil may have spilled from a deep-water well off Sao Paulo state but said the situation was under control.

Exxon Mobil Corp and Americas Petrogas Inc have “phenomenal” tight natural-gas prospects in Argentina and expect “explosive” output growth in 5 years, said Guimar Vaca Coca, managing director of Americas Petrogas.

Falklands’ oil industry sources said the round of oil exploration began in 2010 with the “Ocean Guardian” rig and just concluded, involving Rockhopper Exploration and Desire Petroleum, was “hugely successful” with several major oil and gas discoveries.

Rockhopper Exploration Plc shares surged in London trading following a report that Texas based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is in talks with the only company to have made a commercial oil discovery off the Falkland Islands.

Offshore drilling activity in UK waters fell by a third last year to its lowest level since 2003, going against a trend of increased exploration and appraisal activity in the rest of north-west Europe, according to a new report.

A large oil rig has arrived off the coast of Cuba to begin searching for offshore oil deposits. Several international companies will use the rig to drill exploratory wells in deep water in the Florida Strait, which separates Cuba from the US.