
Exxon-Mobil has completed an extended-reach well offshore southern California, which it claims is the world’s longest extended-reach well drilled from an existing offshore fixed platform drilling rig.

Rockhopper Exploration (AIM: RKH) has spudded its 100% owned Sea Lion 14/10-B exploration well in the Licence PL032 in the North Falkland Basin. Once drilling is complete, Sea Lion’s results will be eagerly anticipated among investors following the prospective Falkland oil and gas play.

Brazilian government managed energy giant Petrobras announced it acquired a 50% stake in an exploration block in Australia with significant natural gas potential. Petrobras acquired the stake from MEO Australia for 39 million USD.

Venezuelan Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said some 120 billion USD will be invested over the next seven years in the Orinoco Belt, which the U.S. Geological Survey says is the largest petroleum accumulation it has ever evaluated.

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev met with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to commemorate 125 years of bilateral relations between Argentina and Russia and to sign several cooperation agreements in different fields including helping Argentina to develop its nuclear program.

China's Sinopec will buy stakes in two Brazilian offshore blocks from state-run Petrobras, local media reported Wednesday, as part of a cooperation agreement to be signed during a visit by China's president to Brazil.

The first major top-level industry wide meeting of all leading players in the exploration of the Brazilian pre-salt oil fields will be taking place next in June in Rio de Janeiro.

Several oil companies operating in Argentina have teamed up to begin hydrocarbons explorations close to Falklands’ waters. The companies have programmed to spend 140 million US dollars in two exploratory wells for which they have contracted a special drilling vessel, according to reports in the Buenos Aires press.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered Wednesday to help Uruguay expand a refinery and supply it with crude oil. Chavez and visiting Uruguayan President Jose Mujica signed several accords pledging to deepen trade and energy ties between the two nations.

Bolivia and Brazil are considering a vast joint investment program to industrialize natural gas and for the exploitation of strategic minerals in the salt plains of the land-locked Andean country.