1. Austria - Hungary: OMV Launches Court Action Against MOL over Shareholder Meeting
Austria's OMV has filed a law suit against takeover target MOL seeking to annul all resolutions that were made by MOL shareholders at the Hungarian company's annual meeting in April. MOL has remained adamantly opposed to the takeover and has built up an alliance of supporters within its own shareholder structure, overcoming a 10% voting cap, in a bid to block a potential takeover offer. OMV has argued that the alliance agreements mean that the shares held by MOL's allies should be deemed de facto Treasury shares, and in May sought a declaratory court ruling to affirm they should be treated as such. The new lawsuit sees OMV continue with its argument over the validity of the MOL shareholder agreements; the first scheduled hearing for the case has been set for 21 January 2009.

2. Russia: Lundin Petroleum Announces "Major" Oil Discovery in Russian Sector of Caspian
Lundin Petroleum said yesterday that it had made a "major" discovery at its first exploration well at the Lagansky block in the Russian sector of the northern Caspian Sea. The Swedish oil company said that an exploratory well at the Morskaya structure of the block "has encountered a major oil accumulation...minor amounts of gas were encountered in the overlying Albian reservoir". News of the discovery sent Lundin's stock soaring, climbing as much as 15% in early trading. Lundin had been facing a threat to its licence for the Lagansky block until reaching a deal with Gazprom last year under which the Russian gas giant has an option to buy a 50%-plus-one stake in the project. Lundin has its own option agreement with a minority partner in the Lagansky project that will allow Lundin to secure an indirect 50%-minus-one stake in the block if Gazprom exercises its option.

3. Canada - India: Canadian Oil Sands Targeted by Indian Firms for Multi-Billion-Dollar Investments
Companies involved in oil sands projects in Canada could be on the receiving end of significant flows of capital from Indian firms, if comments made by India's Oil Secretary MS Srinivasan pan out. The official suggested that investments of up to US$2.5 billion could be made, though Indian firms would most likely be seeking to acquire stakes, rather than companies outright.

4. Brazil - China: CNOOC Invites Petrobras to Explore Offshore in China
China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) is to extend an invitation to Petrobras this year to help it drill for oil in coastal deepwaters in the China Sea. The comments were made by CNOOC's president Fu Chengyu and have been widely reported. The explicit basis for the invitation is that China recognises the potential of its offshore regions and that Petrobras, which quite recently announced the sizeable Tupi deepwater discovery in Brazil, "is the company that's best able to identify it." In return, China would like to become involved in oil exploration offshore Brazil.