EUROPE'S CONTINUING ENERGY WORRIES

Russia is determined to take advantage of Europe's dependence on foreign energy:

Russia should cut oil supplies to "overfed" Europe, the chief of Russian pipeline monopolist Transneft has said.

Less than a week after Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom threatened to shift gas supplies from the EU to North America or China, Transneft's president Semyon Vainshtok has now threatened Moscow could do the same with crude oil.

"We have overfed Europe with crude. And every single economic manual says that excessive supplies depress prices," Mr Vainshtok told the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Monday (24 April) according to Reuters.

Norway suggests that Europe look to the north:

Increased extraction of oil and natural gas from the Barents Sea may provide Europe with its much needed energy, the Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store has said.

Ahead of a meeting with his Swedish counterpart in Stockholm, the Norwegian minister in a letter published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on Monday (24 April), sketched a European energy scenario focusing on the ice-packed northern parts of our planet.

There's always oil rich whales.