Europe

While Neil Armstrong’s and Edwin Aldrin’s first footsteps on the moon in July, 1969, to this day remains one of the most iconic moments in human history, mankind’s fascination with space dates back to centuries beforehand.

For centuries Gibraltar, with its strategic location at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, was used as a naval fortress. Today the Rock, located at a crossroads of Mediterranean and Atlantic shipping lanes, is recognised for its ability to provide a wide range of services to vessels of all sizes and types, and for being a Maritime Centre of Excellence.

Brian Nixon has spent most of his career working for major engineering contractors. Around 25 years of his career to be exact, roughly half of those years spent in the upstream, offshore sector, with the rest in the downstream, onshore market.

This is according to the latest report by the Wood Mackenzie energy consultancy, which says that the UK continental shelf remains one of the world's top ten areas for investment around 40 years after production started.

Describing the UK North Sea as a remarkable success story, Wood Mackenzie said spending on new projects had returned to levels last seen in the 1970s after allowing for inflation.

The deal has seen the budget airline agree to purchase 135 new aircraft from Airbus, 35 of which will be its A320 aircraft and 100 its new-generation A320neo jets. At list price said order would cost Easyjet more than $11 billion, however the company claims to have negotiated a substantial discount.

What makes this particular deal all the more significant is the fact that both Airbus and Boeing were competing to win it.

It was in July 1887 that Scottish academic James Blyth installed the world’s first electricity-generating wind turbine. Although at the time considered uneconomical in the UK, electricity generating wind turbines proved to be far more cost effective in countries with widely scattered populations, a fact that saw American inventor Charles F Brush follow up Blyth’s work some months later by building the first automatically operated wind turbine for electricity production in Cleveland, Ohio.

The event, which falls several weeks ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster than resulted in the death of 167 men, is designed to further encourage people working offshore to think about the lessons that have been learnt since the tragedy.

The keynote speaker is Lord Cullen, whose report into the tragedy led to major safety changes.

The company is talking to Cuadrilla Resources about buying a stake in its licences in the Bowland shale formation in Lancashire.

The news comes just days after IGas, one of the companies granted a licence to explore parts of the UK, speculated that the UK could be sitting on top of untold shale gas resources.

Cuadrilla is among a small number of companies exploring the UK's shale gas potential. The company estimates that there may be as much as 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in its licensed areas.

The company believes that there may be up to 170 trillion cubic feet of gas in the areas it is licensed to explore in northern England alone.

IGas is one of the companies granted a licence by UK authorities to explore parts of the country believed to contain large resources of shale gas. The company's licences cover an area of 300 square miles across Cheshire.

The deal, which Tui claims will see them acquiring the new planes at a discount to the list price of $6.1 billion, includes an option to purchase a further 90 aircraft of the same model at a later date.

Tui, which is the world's largest tour operator with a presence in 180 countries, currently operates 141 aircraft across six European airlines, Thomson Airways, Tuifly, Tuifly Nordic, Arkefly, Jetairfly and Corsair.