Azerbaijan - INPEX Corp said its Chirag oil project in the Caspian Sea has been approved by Azerbaijan's government.

Dubai. The UAE boosted public spending to its highest-ever level of Dh289 billion in 2009 despite a sharp decline in oil revenues resulting from lower prices and production, the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) said yesterday.

Beijing. Sinopec, Asia's largest oil refiner, is considering joining hands with U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia's national oil company Saudi Aramco to build an oil refinery in Southeast China's Fujian Province, said Jia Xitai, former vice governor of the province.

China - China has started "preliminary work" on the second phase of the nation`s emergency oil reserves in Guangdong to help bolster energy security and meet demand, the head of the province`s economic planning agency said.

Iraq - Iraq has extended a memorandum of understanding with Royal Dutch Shell on a natural gas venture around the southern oil hub of Basra for six months from March 2010, Iraq’s oil minister said yesterday.

Azerbaijan - A $6 billion infrastructure project to recover an extra 360 million barrels of oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields in Azerbaijan has been given the go-ahead, said the field's operator BP PLC (BP) Tuesday.

Baku. The Steering Committee for the development of the Azeri, Chirag and deepwater portion of the Gunashli (ACG) fields today sanctioned investment in the new Chirag Oil Project (COP).

Hanoi. J Ray McDermott has won a deal for the subsea tie-in of a new wellhead platform to the existing floating production unit Dai Hung oilfield in Block 5-1 off Vietnam.