Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

3 December 2014

	Crude price boosts shares The FTSE 100 bounced back yesterday as stronger commodity stocks helped it more than recover the ground lost in a 1% decline over the previous session.

	Oil, the ruble and Putin are all headed for 63 Heard the one about Vladimir Putin, the oil price and the ruble’s value against the dollar? They will all hit 63 next year. That’s the joke doing the rounds of the Kremlin as the Russian government digs in to weather international sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.

	Opinion: Riding the waves after OPEC We all need to remember, but often choose to forget, that the oil & gas exploration and production is a highly cyclical business. There have been seven significant price cycles since 1970 and also a few minor ones between times, so yet another should come as no surprise.

	Price drop spurs demand in Southern Europe The plunging oil price is giving an unexpected lift to Europe’s crisis-battered southern periphery as decreasing fuel costs help spur demand. Spain, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, could add as much as 1 percent to annual growth with oil prices between $80-90 a barrel, the government said.

	MP claims drop in oil price would have left huge spending gap in an independent Scotland .Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael said the recent fall in the value of oil means that if Scotland had voted to leave the UK it could have been facing a spending gap about the same size as the entire budget for the health service north of the border

	OGA chairman to be paid £100k for part-time role Eyebrows were raised after it emerged that the incoming chairman of the new oil and gas regulator would enjoy a £100,000 pay packet for a job that requires just 2.5 days work

	UK oil and gas 'missing out on £7bn' in government funding The UK oil and gas industry is missing out on a government funding pot worth more than £7billion because it has failed to sufficiently organise itself, a business leader warned yesterday.

	Offshore leaders poised for Autumn Statement Offshore leaders are poised to find out if UK ministers will move to resuscitate the North Sea sector – or stand by as price falls hammer a "nail in the coffin".

	UK government rejects call from MPs for helicopter safety study The UK Government has rejected a call from MPs for an independent study into North Sea helicopter safety. Louise Ellman, the chairwoman of the transport select committee at Westminster, wrote to ministers last month asking them to order research assessing any safety improvements and on-going issues in the sector.

	Opinion:Balancing the benefit and controlling cost Last month, I wrote about how the drop in the oil price will require operators in the UKCS to consider more carefully how they collaborate with each other.