Zacks' Recap Of Week's Most Important Stories -- August 31, 2016

Zacks recap of the week's most important stories:

• the world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, has decided against investing further in the proposed Alaska LNG facility
• Royal Dutch Shell will sell all US-based properties in the Gulf of Mexico
• Chevron entered a deal with a Chinese distributor for shipping LNG from the company's existing projects in Australia
• Petrobras received government permission to sell 49% stake in its natural-gas distribution unit to Japan's Mitsui & Co
• Chinese energy giant PetroChina reported huge decline in earnings and revenue
• Not mentioned by Zacks, but it was also announced this past week that Chinese oil production may be facing "peak oil" production

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Norway

I thought Norway was doing well. Maybe not. From CNN Money:

Norway's offshore oil, gas and shipping activity shrank by 1.4% in the quarter, while mainland GDP grew just 0.4%.

The government has been forced, for the first time, to tap the nation's huge sovereign wealth fund. Norway's central bank said the country might be forced to withdraw more than $9 billion from the $888 billion pension fund in 2016 to make up for the collapse in oil revenue.

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Job Watch

AP: 

• added "a solid" 177,000 jobs in August
• "hiring remains healthy" after two months of strong gains 
• gains in service jobs, retailers
• cuts in construction, manufacturing

Remember, these were the "magic numbers" BEFORE the Obama administration (link here):

First time claims, unemployment benefits: 400,000 (> 400,000: economic stagnation)

New jobs: 200,000 (< 200,000 new jobs: economic stagnation)

Economists estimate the labor market needs to create about 125,000 jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate steady, though estimates vary -- Reuters.