VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has temporarily halted all its tanker transits via the Red Sea after attacks on ships by Iranian-backed Houthi militants based in Yemen escalated.

Chancellor George Osborne has announced a £1-billion rescue package for trouble-hit North Sea oil industry. The government is also extending £730 million support for renewable electricity.

It's yet not over for oil prices to go plunging as BP and Shell will report this week that billions of pounds were shelled off their profits as the aftermath of low oil price associated with exploration failures strike two of Britain's biggest companies.

The oil price in the global market continued to skid further on Wednesday touching a new low since March 2009 while crude inventories in the US are increasing.

Oil major BP beat expectations for the fourth quarter of 2014 thanks to a surprise profit from its stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft while taking a $3.6 billion impairment charge and cutting spending due to low oil prices.

Europe's oil majors will strike a sober note in their fourth-quarter results and investors will focus on companies' plans to maintain cherished dividends and their strategies to cope with the oil prices collapse that caught many unawares.

BP will cut hundreds of jobs across its global oil and gas business by the end of next year in a $1 billion restructuring program announced on Wednesday following steep falls in oil prices.

Tanzania has held talks with France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Britain's BP (BP.L) over oil and gas exploration, its energy ministry said on Saturday, aiming to add to major companies active in its thriving energy sector.

A looming gas glut worldwide is prompting Japanese and Indian firms to resell to European traders and utilities big chunks of U.S. liquefied natural gas they had committed to buy several years ago, signaling tempered enthusiasm for U.S. energy.

Exxon Mobil said on Friday it will wind down drilling in Russia's Arctic in the face of U.S. sanctions targeting Western cooperation with Moscow's oil sector, after the Obama administration granted a brief extension to safely mothball its operations.

The British government has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling against BP Plc (BP.L) over a 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill that produced one of the largest class actions in American history.

BP should be able to meet the cost of up to $18 billion of new fines for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill without major asset sales or a big cut in its dividend, analysts say.

Russia's top oil producer has been planning to sell more than 2 million metric ton of crude oil to state-controlled BP in a deal valued more than $1.15 billion and was approved by the company's board.

Texas, US-based private investment firm TPG Capital is in a tussle with two other potential buyers of the Australian assets of Netherlands-based petrol and refining firm Royal Dutch Shell, according to a report.

Fresh investments were promised by BP and Reliance Industries in oil and gas.