VENTURE CAPITAL POST

U.S. Representative Joe Barton will introduce a bill on Tuesday to lift the 40-year ban on exports of crude oil, but the measure has almost no chance of passing due to lawmaker concerns about fuel prices and costs to refiners.

U.S. stocks dipped on Monday, after soft data in China and Japan raised global growth concerns, while a further drop in oil prices weighed on energy shares.

The United States is willing to help Hungary and other European countries build energy infrastructure to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas, U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest André Goodfriend has told Nepszava newspaper.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, with both the Dow and S&P 500 ending at records, as data pointed to improving conditions in the U.S. services sector, boosting cyclical stocks.

A House of Representatives panel will hold a hearing on Dec. 11 to explore whether a decades-old law that prohibits the export of crude oil makes sense in an era of domestic energy abundance.

The Chinese government and banks will finance Chinese companies to build $45.6 billion worth of energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan over the next six years, according to new details of the deal seen by Reuters on Friday.

Backers of the Keystone XL oil pipeline hope a vote in the U.S. Senate late on Tuesday will send a bill to the desk of President Barack Obama.

More than a year ago, U.S. regulators quietly gave a small company permission to export lightly processed oil known as condensate - a previously unreported ruling that could further strengthen the hand of big energy companies pushing hard to chip away at a 40-year-old ban on domestic crude exports.

The oil market has entered a new era with lower Chinese economic growth and booming U.S. shale output, making a return soon to high prices unlikely, the West's energy watchdog said on Friday.

European stocks fell back on Friday and U.S. stocks looked set to open flat after a mixed bag of euro zone growth numbers that showed France and Germany growing marginally but others like Italy still firmly in recession.

Asian stocks dipped on Friday following fresh signs of slowing Chinese growth, with energy stocks depressed across the region as crude oil hovered near a four-year low in an oversupplied market.

U.S. stock prices held firm on Thursday after the Dow and Standard & Poor's 500 reached record intraday highs, while crude fell below $80 a barrel for the first time in four years on further signs of a slowdown in China's economy.

Unfazed by slumping oil prices and battering in the stock market, firms that supply sand and guar gum for shale oil and gas companies are not ready yet to call an end to a four-year boom spurred by hydraulic fracturing technology.

With Congressional election results so far confirming expectations, a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate will likely deal investors a result that could have a direct effect on the energy sector and other slices of the equities market.

Investors betting that oil prices will recover are starting to support the battered prices of high-yield bonds from exploration and production (E&P) energy companies.