NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 20, 2017 / Oil Prices received a boost Thursday after the International Energy Agency's (IES) monthly report signaled the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) previously announced production cuts were on track. The IEA reported OPEC crude production declined 320,000 barrels a day to 33.09 million barrels a day in December. OPEC themselves reported a decline of 221,000 barrels a day in December. IEA also stated that steeper declines could be seen in January.

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"Early indications suggest a deeper OPEC reduction may be under way for January, as Saudi Arabia and its neighbors enforce supply cuts," the IEA said.

Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NBL)

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Noble Energy's shares gained 1.21 percent to close at $40.27 a share Thursday. The stock traded between $39.57 and $40.60 on volume of 5.36 million shares traded. On January 16th, the company announced that it has acquired all of the outstanding common stock of Clayton Williams Energy, Inc. for $2.7 billion in Noble Energy stock and cash. With the acquisition, Noble increases its core Delaware Basin position to nearly 120,000 net acres.

David L. Stover, Noble Energy's Chairman, President and CEO, stated, "This combination creates the industry's second largest Southern Delaware Basin acreage position and provides more than 4,200 drilling locations on approximately 120,000 net acres, with over 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in net unrisked resource. In addition to the benefits driven by larger scale, the midstream assets and planned buildout provide significant synergies and substantial dropdown potential in association with our ownership in Noble Midstream Partners."

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM)

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Exxon Mobil's shares declined 1.80 percent to close at $84.73 a share Thursday. The stock traded between $84.59 and $86.10 on volume of 16.38 million shares traded. Analysts at UBS have recently downgraded the company's rating to "sell" from "neutral" and cut its target price to $77.0. Consensus estimate on the company is "hold" with average target price of $88.79. On January 17th, Exxon Mobil announced that it would double its Permian Basin resource to 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent through the acquisition of companies owned by the Bass family of Fort Worth, Texas, that have an estimated resource of 3.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, of which 75 percent is liquids.

"This acquisition strengthens ExxonMobil's significant presence in the dominant U.S. growth area for onshore oil production," said Darren W. Woods, ExxonMobil chairman and chief executive officer. "This investment gives us an exceptional Delaware Basin position in a proven multi-stacked play that can generate attractive returns in a low-price environment."

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