Urgent action is needed to restructure South Africa’s electricity distribution industry, with infrastructure and maintenance backlogs recently breaking R30 billion and growing at a rate of R2.5 billion a year, Deputy Energy Minister Barbara Thompson told energy industry delegates at the 2011 Energy Indaba conference this week.

The conference coincides with the controversial closure of EDI Holdings, the company set up in 2003 by the South African government to address the issue of energy distribution.

Dutch construction firm Ballast Nedam has agreed to take over a proportion of the activities of its bankrupt Dutch rival Heddes.

Nieuwegein-based Ballast Nedham will take on 16 projects, collectively worth around €100 million, as well as Heddes’ small-scale construction activities.

Heddes Bouw & Ontwikkeling’s 100 employees will continue to operate from the company’s head office in Hoorn.

Heddes filed for bankruptcy on 16 February, having suffered from the effects of the slowdown in the construction industry.

Deepwater drilling has recommenced in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since the drilling moratorium was imposed in June after the BP oil disaster.

Although the moratorium was officially lifted last October, Noble Energy is the first to receive a permit to resume drilling at its Santiago prospect in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico.

ESB International (ESBI) has been awarded a contract by NamPower to provide technical advisory services for the development of the 800 MW Kudu combined cycle power plant at Oranjemund on the Namibia / South Africa border.

The power plant will use gas from the Kudu Gas field to produce electricity for Namibia and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). Increasing demand for electricity in Africa as economies in the region grow is continuing to put pressure on state utilities such as NamPower.

The 2011 International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago from 4-6 March will see a new glass bottle from BottlesUp, designed by the company’s founder, nationally-acclaimed glass artist Laurel Herter.

The show is considered the world's premier housewares marketplace, featuring over 2,000 exhibitors from 34 countries, and more than 20,000 buyers. BottlesUp will debut in the special invitation-only “Discover Design” section (Booth #3971) at the show.

The chairman of the taskforce overseeing the creation of the Kigali Free Trade Zone (KFTZ) in Rwanda has said it will be launched in April this year.

Speaking to Business Times, Alex Ruzibukira, head of the Kigali Free Trade Zone initiative at the state-run Rwanda Development Board, said around 90 per cent of the work on the 250-hectare project has been completed.

With the necessary infrastructure now in place, investors will be able to commence construction of factories and warehouses.

Oil and gas exploration in Bahrain is set to boom over the next decade; and the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) is positioning itself to help drive this exciting period of development.

Established less than 10 years ago, Fortis Healthcare has become India’s largest private healthcare provider. Managing director Shivinder Mohan Singh explains to Gay Sutton how the company is providing world-class medical care while using economies of scale and improving efficiency to bring costs down.

One of the most famous nautical names in the world offers a surprising mix of services, as Alan Swaby discovers.

There can’t be many ports which have an ancestry going back 2,000 years or which, at least these days, handles so little actual freight as Gibraltar. In many ways, it is unique—not just in terms of its location at the crossroads of the north-south and east-west shipping routes, but also in terms of its business mix.

Across Southern Africa the economic downturn has hampered efforts to build crucial infrastructure, resulting in power shortages across the region at a time when demand for power continues to escalate. Being no stranger to this scenario, Botswana is now turning to companies like Asenjo Energy to utilise its vast quantities of coal. Chief operating officer Malcolm Campbell talks to Andrew Pelis.