China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Limited, the listed unit of the country's largest offshore oil producer, announced Thursday that the company has made a new oil discovery in the Bohai Sea.

According to CNOOC Ltd, the new discovery LD 21-2 is located in the inverted structure belt of LD 22-27 in south Liaodong Bay, with its south part adjacent to LD 27-2 oilfield. The average water depth is 20 meters.

But indicate prices may come down next month. While maintaining that there will be no immediate rollback of the hike in petrol prices, oil companies have indicated that prices may come down next month as part of the revision exercise. While the move to hike petrol prices is being opposed by political parties, stock markets and industry have cheered the move and even the rupee gained strength today on the back of improved sentiment.

BP said Wednesday that it would spend $400 million to install pollution controls at its giant Whiting, Ind., refinery to allow it to process heavy crude oil from Canada, in a deal with federal and state regulators. The consent decree reached with the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency also requires BP, based in London, to pay $8 million to resolve prior claims of clean-air violations at the plant, the sixth-largest American refinery.

Shortly before Thanksgiving in 2010, the leaders of the commission President Obama had appointed to investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico sat down in the Oval Office to brief him.

After listening to their findings about the BP accident and the safety of deepwater drilling, the president abruptly changed the subject.

“Where are you coming out on the offshore Arctic?” he asked.

New Delhi: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday laid the onus of the petrol price hike on oil marketers. “The decision has been taken. Petrol is a deregulated commodity,” he said. The government had freed petrol prices in June 2010 when crude came down to around $40 a barrel from a historic high of $147 per barrel in July 2008. But in practice, oil companies do not move without a signal from the parent oil ministry which officially continues to deny any control.

Rates of diesel, LPG and kerosene left untouched

The UPA-II, celebrating three years in office, gave the “common man” a gift on Wednesday: the steepest- ever increase of Rs. 7.54 in petrol prices. The increase is the first in the past six months. Petrol price in Delhi was increased by Rs. 7.54 a litre to Rs. 73.18 with effect from midnight Wednesday, the state-owned oil marketing companies said in separate, but identical, statements.

Bangladesh has discovered oil in two old gas fields in the country's northeastern region with an extractable reserve worth $5.5 billion, the chairman of state-owned Petrobangla said Monday.

Hussain Monsur told AFP the two finds at Kailashtila and Sylhet contain proven reserves of 137 million barrels of low sulphur crude oil, of which 55 million barrels can be lifted commercially.

Low sulphur, or "sweet", crude oil is highly sought after and is more easily processed into gasoline than high sulphur crude.

In response to demands from companies engaged in extracting coal bed methane (CBM) for a single operator who would work the CBM blocks, an inter-ministerial panel has asked the petroleum secretary GC Chaturvedi to prepare a note on best practices for the sector in areas where oil and gas finds overlap.

Bangladesh has struck its first oil, in two gas fields in the northeastern Sylhet region, the chairman of the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) said on Sunday.

"This is first time that we have found economically viable oil resources, estimated at about 153 million barrels, in the two gas fields, 280 km (175 miles) from the capital," Mohammad Hussain Monsur told reporters, adding that production could begin within a year.

Uzbekistan has signed a deal with a consortium of foreign banks to obtain loans worth a total of $2.54 billion to build a gas and chemicals complex on its Surgil field, state oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz said.

Uzbekneftegaz said in a statement the signing ceremony had taken place in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Saturday.