It was cloudy in the Algerian city of Oran on Wednesday…and a fairly pleasant 14 degrees in the open air… But the assembled leaders of the OPEC oil exporters’ cartel must have been feeling rather hot under the collar. Since hitting a peak of $147 in July this year, the price of oil has fallen by about $100. That has put the oil exporting countries under a huge amount of pressure. And now they are determined to drive the price of oil back up again.

Global oil production is set to fall sharply

On Wednesday, the cartel announced that it will slash daily oil production by 2.46 million barrels a day. That’s OPEC’s biggest production cut ever. What’s even more extraordinary is that some of the big the non-OPEC producers are now coordinating their production cuts with the cartel.

The Russians attended the OPEC meeting and they may cut announce their own

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‘Russia is seizing on record oil and natural gas prices to market its nuclear reactors abroad and plans to gain as much as 20% of the global market.’ The Energy Ministry expects Russian gas exports to Europe to rise by almost 38% by 2015, although is less optimistic for China. Kazakhstan’s oil industry is still seeing strong foreign interest despite borrowing issues.

Despite falling energy prices, estimates on oil explorer Penn Virginia continue to trend higher. The company beat Wall Street estimates by 28.21% in the second quarter while reporting record production. The company trades with a forward P/E of 13.16.

Company Description

Penn Virginia Corporation (PVA) is an oil and gas exploration and production company that operates in Appalachia, Mississippi, east Texas, the Mid-Continent and the Gulf Coast regions.

The company has been allocating the majority of its resources to its lower-risk drilling areas in Appalachia, Mississippi, east Texas and the Mid-Continet regions. However, PVA continues to explore in the higher-risk areas such as Gulf Coast region and the shale plays, including the Devonian, Fayetteville and New Albany shales.

PVA also owns approximately 77% of Penn Virginia GP Holdings (PVG), the owner of the general partner and the largest unitholder of Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR), a

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by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaGerman consumer confidence dropped to the lowest in more than five years entering August as the sharp rise in energy and food prices continued to weaken purchasing power and the economic outlook continued to deteriorate. The GfK forward looking consumer confidence index for August declined to 2.1, its lowest level since June 2003 (and down from a revised 3.6 in July).

The sub-index measuring income expectations decreased to minus 20 from minus 7.2, while the consumers' propensity to spend component fell to minus 26.2 from minus 23.7. Economic expectations dropped to minus 8 from 7.5.Along with fears of high inflation, many Germans are concerned that there will be a more marked cooling of the economy than previously anticipated. News from the USA of the continuing gloom in the

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German consumer confidence dropped to the lowest in more than five years entering August as the sharp rise in energy and food prices continued to weaken purchasing power and the economic outlook continued to deteriorate. The GfK forward looking consumer confidence index for August declined to 2.1, its lowest level since June 2003 (and down from a revised 3.6 in July).

The sub-index measuring income expectations decreased to minus 20 from minus 7.2, while the consumers' propensity to spend component fell to minus 26.2 from minus 23.7. Economic expectations dropped to minus 8 from 7.5.Along with fears of high inflation, many Germans are concerned that there will be a more marked cooling of the economy than previously anticipated. News from the USA of the continuing gloom in the financial markets support these assumptions

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The Philippine central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by the most since 2000on 17 July and forecast inflation will exceed last month's 14-year high on record oil and food prices. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas increased the rate it pays banks for overnight deposits by 0.5 percentage point to 5.75 percent.Fuel prices in the Philippines have risen every week since April and rice costs have jumped 70 percent this year - the Philippines is the world's biggest importer of rice and buys almost all of its oil from abroad. Bangko Sentral increased its 2008 inflation estimate to a range of 9 percent to 11 percent today, from a previous prediction of 7 percent to 9 percent, citing a weak peso and higher food, transportation and energy costs. GDP growth probably accelerated to 5.6 percent in the ...