Chronology of world oil market events

Iraq will pay foreign oil companies about $2 billion in remaining arrears for 2015 this April and expects to reach an agreement over contracts by half-way through the year, the deputy oil minister said.

Turkey's exports increased slightly in February compared to the same month last year, after 14 straight months of decline, the Turkey Exporters' Assembly (TIM) reported on March 1.

"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent," said John Maynard Keynes (or maybe it wasn't him, but no matter). At any rate, that was the eternal verity the Saudi Arabians were counting on when they decided to let oil production rip - and the oil price collapse - in late 2014.

Russia and Saudi Arabia, the world’s two largest crude producers, agreed to freeze output and fix production at January levels after talks held in Doha, Qatar.

Hellenic Petroleum, Greece’s largest refinery, has struck a deal to buy oil from the National Iranian Oil Company in the first sale of Iranian crude oil to a European country since trade sanctions were lifted. The long-term agreement announced on Friday said that deliveries are to begin immediately.

Iran wants to avoid an oil price war with rival producers and only gradually lift exports once sanctions against it are lifted, a senior official said, in what would be a major shift away from planning to ship as much fuel as soon as possible. 

OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia posted a record $98 billion budget deficit in 2015 due to the sharp fall in oil prices, the finance ministry said on Dec. 28.

Revenues were estimated at 608 billion riyals ($162 billion), well below projections and 2014 income, while spending came in at 975 billion riyals ($260 billion), ministry officials announced at a press conference in Riyadh.

OPEC said Dec. 10 that it expects oil production by countries outside the cartel to fall in 2016 by more than it previously forecast, in a sign that its audacious strategy may be working at last.

While big olive oil producers had their worst year in more than a decade, Turkey couldn't turn this situation to its advantage despite increasing production, as some merchants stockpiled olive oil and caused prices to rise dramatically, according to sector representatives. 

The return of oil from Iran following the landmark nuclear energy deal with world powers could create fresh tensions within OPEC but may reinforce the cartel's output strategy, analysts say.