Having beaten off France’s Total to the deal, Shell will now work with ADNOC to develop the Bab field. The project in question, which could be worth up to $10 billion over the course of its lifetime, is considered to be a particularly complex undertaking as it contains sour gas, a poisonous and foul smelling product.

As field service organisations review their priorities, it’s important to note what factors are driving them. Budgets? Productivity? Efficiency? All of these play a role in some capacity but when it comes to key strategies, there are several that come up time and time again.

“Over the course of the last 18 months,” explains Technical Support Service Manager for International Business Development, Feisal Aden Darar, “we have been focusing on local and international trends to materialise our core goals. We have improved our Internet transit solutions by deploying Level 3 PoP, a world class Tier 1 and Saudi Telecommunication Company’s POP, with strong presence in the Middle East. In addition we have upgraded our existing Telecom Italia Sparkle node in terms of capacity and diversity.

Western Australia's Pilbara region is best known today as one of the world's biggest sources of iron ore and manganese – principally the former. These minerals are shipped out of Port Hedland to the hungry markets of north Asia and India, where demand for steel seems insatiable and likely to hold up for a good many years to come. In 2012, out of a total of 245 million tonnes of every kind of cargo that was exported through Hedland, 97 percent was accounted for by iron ore, 0.8 percent by manganese.

According to the most recent World Bank economic update published late in 2012, “Tanzania stands out as a model of sound economic performance with a growth rate of over six percent in 2011 and 2012.” Tanzania’s economic prospects look positive over the period for 2012-14, the report goes on to say, when its GDP is forecast to grow at a rate of 6.5 to 7 percent. In economic terms Tanzania was a rock of stability in 2011/12, recording solid growth and strengthened fiscal discipline despite increases in the rate of inflation.

Since the early 1930s the mining industry has been the economic and social backbone of Zambia. In the decades since the country’s economy has been heavily reliant on the mining of copper and cobalt. Today the country is internationally recognised as a premier producer of these products, and is ranked as the world’s seventh largest producer of copper, generating 3.3 percent of the western world’s total production.

Renowned for the quality of its product, which has proven to be the lifeblood of the Kenyan construction industry over the last 80 years, the East African Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) has been the country’s leading cement manufacturer since it was founded in 1933.

Originally known as The Associated Manganese Mines of South Africa Limited, Assmang as it exists today bears very little resemblance to the fledgling company that started work on the Northern Cape’s manganese fields in 1935. Today, the three operating divisions benefit from the modern mining infrastructure and technologies, while Assmang’s “we do it better” philosophy has helped to ensure low operating costs and high employee buy-in.

Under the $650 million deal, which also includes the copper mine’s associated San Manuel Arizona Railroad Company (SMARRCO), Capstone will assume the business's environmental liabilities, and BHP Billiton employees working at Pinto Valley and SMARRCO will become employees of Capstone.

BHP has been looking to restructure its business and offload non-core assets, amid a decline in global demand and falling commodity prices. The mining group has said that it wants to focus on core businesses such as iron ore and coal.