Asia

As Indian overground commuter transport is expanded and upgraded and metro systems start to take off, Jane Bordenave talks to Rajeev Jyoti, president and managing director of Bombardier Transportation India, about his company’s key role in these developments and how the market is changing.

As a training ground, the oil and gas industry of Pakistan offers entrants plenty of scope for learning their trade, as Alan Swaby discovers.

Try as it may, the Pakistani oil and gas industry has yet to hit the big time. The first oil well was spudded a century and a half ago and there has been no shortage of exploration since then. Part of the problem is that there seems to be more gas than oil in Pakistan; and it was only in the last three to four decades that the demand for gas picked up.

Russia has signed a deal to provide South African nuclear power stations with uranium until at least 2017.

The contract, signed in Moscow following talks between Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev and South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma, comes into effect next year.

The deal involves South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom and Tenex, a unit of Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom. Tenex will provide South Africa’s only nuclear plant, Koeberg, which is operated by Eskom, with uranium supplies for 10 years.

EDFof France is to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI) of Hong Kong for £5.8 billion.

EDF's UK unit, EDF Energy Networks, distributes electricity to 7.8 million customers and generates around a fifth of Britain's electricity.

In acquiring EDF Networks, CKI has obtained low-voltage electricity distribution networks in the east and south of England, and ongoing contracts with businesses including the London Underground, Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and the Channel Tunnel.

Germany’s Siemens AG has signed multi-billion euro deals to supply railway technologies and wind power to Russia.

Under the agreements, Siemens will modernise 22 railway switching yards by 2026 and supply Russian Railways (RZD) with 240 regional trains (a total of 1,200 coaches)over the next 10 years.

The trains will be a specialised version of the Desiro, which will be produced in Russia starting in 2012. Siemens is planning a joint venture with RZD subsidiary Aeroexpress to manufacture the trains.

Nigeria's state-run oil firm NNPC has said that three new refineries will be on-stream by 2014, following a deal signed with China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC).

The three refineries will have a combined capacity of 885,000 barrels per day and will cost $25 billion. This will triple Nigeria’s refining capacity to 1.3 million barrels per day and bring it closer to its aim of eliminating its dependence on fuel imports within the next 10 years.

Search giant Google has agreed to buy ITA Software Inc. for $700 million, giving it a foothold in the fast-growing online travel industry.

 Google’s offer beat that of rivals Microsoft and other travel and search related companies who were hoping to prevent Google from taking over ITA.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker will manufacture Focus cars for domestic and export markets at the factory, which is due to open in 2012. The plant in Rayong province, 200 kilometres east of Bangkok, will have an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year.

Some 85 percent of the Thai-based Focus output will be exported, mostly to other south-east Asian nations and to Australia.