By LAURA CHESTERS FOR THE DAILY MAIL: 19 September 2016
Oil is slowly climbing back to $50 a barrel as a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia and an agreement on production in Venezuela helped to stabilise prices.
The production agreements could finally give some assurances to dozens of companies who have suffered since crude slumped from $114 a barrel in 2014 to $28 early this year.
Oil supermajors such as BP and Shell have been high-profile casualties, losing billions in profits.
They’ve written off billions of pounds and have had to slash tens of thousands of jobs as they change their businesses to cope with the reduced profits.