Bristol, UK-based Imperial Tobacco Group has reported growth for the nine months to the end of June in its interim management statement issued today.

The company has also confirmed that its overall financial position and group operational performance for the financial year to 30 September 2012 is in line with expectations.

In the nine months to 30 June 2012, Imperial said that tobacco net revenue was up three per cent, adding that its total tobacco portfolio was performing well, with ongoing price/mix improvements within each region.

A European consortium has embarked upon a €23.9 million project to design and deploy a 39 MWh energy storage facility in Puglia, Italy.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has announced it will invest US$160 million in Korea to meet anticipated demand for new vehicles and to grow its Renault Samsung Motors brand.

Production of the next-generation Nissan Rogue in Busan, Korea, will begin in 2014, with an annual capacity of about 80,000 units. The plant aims to build a total of 180,000 vehicles this year for sale in Korea and 60 other countries.

Google has launched a service in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya that will allow users to send and receive email via an SMS text message.

“You can now send and receive emails as SMS messages using your mobile phone, regardless of whether or not your phone has an internet connection, like Wifi or 3G,” said Geva Rechav, product manager, emerging markets, for Google in a blog post on Google’s Africa Blog. “Gmail SMS works on any phone, even the most basic ones which only support voice and SMS.

Tullow Oil has encountered oil and gas while drilling at its Wawa-1 well offshore Ghana.

The find was made at the exploration well in the Deepwater Tano licence where oil and gas condensate was intersected in a Turonian turbidite channel system.

The well was drilled 10 kilometres north of the Enyenra-3A well, testing a previously undrilled portion of the licence, Tullow said. The Atwood Hunter semi-submersible rig drilled the Wawa-1 well to a final depth of 3,322 metres in water depths of 587 metres.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Krancer (pictured in the foreground) today opened a valve allowing treated acid mine water from the Antrim treatment plant in Tioga County to power a turbine and begin generating electricity to run the facility.