Energy giants ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom said Saturday they have found gas deposits in the Romanian part of the Black Sea continental shelf, a month after they began explorations in the area.

"The first deepwater well drilled by ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom indicates the presence of natural gas," the two companies said in a press release.

Greeks have moved at least 16 billion euros ($21 billion) in funds to foreign banks in the last two years, about a third of which went to Britain, the finance minister said on Friday.

Evangelos Venizelos said that overall, depositors had withdrawn 65 billion euros from Greek banks since 2009 when the country began a tailspin into its worst economic crisis in decades.

Oil prices hovered above $96 a barrel Friday in Asia as traders awaited a key jobs report for evidence about the strength of the U.S. economy.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up 13 cents at $96.49 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.25 to settle at $96.36 on Thursday.

Retail sales in the 17 countries that use the euro unexpectedly fell during the crucial month of December, official figures showed Friday, raising fears of a looming recession in the single currency bloc.

Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said retail sales dropped 0.4 percent during the month, in contrast to expectations for an increase of the same amount.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao said Friday the Asian giant had neither the ability nor the intention to "buy Europe", amid concerns over growing Chinese investment in debt-stricken Eurozone economies.

China is "willing to cooperate with Europe to fight the current crisis. Some people say this means China wants to buy Europe", Wen told a German-China business forum in the southern city of Guangzhou.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde vowed Thursday to support Tunisia and urged its new leaders to focus their efforts on job creation to win back investor confidence.

"The IMF in 2012 is not what it used to be in the eighties and is now a partner that will always be ready to support Tunisia if and when it needs it," Lagarde told reporters in Tunis.

Social networking titan Facebook filed to go public on Wednesday, seeking to raise $5 billion in the largest flotation ever by an Internet company on Wall Street.

The paperwork for the initial public offering provided the first glimpse of the financial details of the Web giant launched eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg from his Harvard University dorm room when he was just 19.

Asian shares were mixed in cautious trade Wednesday amid weaker-than-expected US economic data, slumping Japanese corporate earnings and ongoing uncertainty over Europe's debt crisis.

Markets were broadly unmoved by official data from China showing manufacturing activity improved slightly in January, while a separate study by HSBC showed a continued contraction, albeit at a slower pace.

Oil prices hovered below $99 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as investors eyed a jump in U.S. crude inventories and signs of sluggish economic growth.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up 15 cents at $98.63 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 30 cents to settle at $98.48 on Tuesday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has presented parliament a draft budget that would cut government spending by 5.6 percent while allocating more money for development projects.

The $416 billion budget, unveiled Wednesday, is about 5 percent less than the previous year's budget, and comes at a time when Iran is facing mounting international sanctions and isolation over its controversial nuclear program. Iran disputes the West's claim that the program is aimed at producing weapons.