Europe

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.

Pre-tax annual profits for the vehicle-maker behind such iconic models as the E-Type rose 11 percent to £1.67 billion and helped temper a 36 percent fall in profits at the company's parent group, Tata Motors.

The results showed that total world sales at the company increased by 22 percent over the course of the year to almost 375,000 vehicles.

Total world sales at Jaguar Land Rover were up 22% to almost 375,000 vehicles in the financial year that it introduced an all-new version of the Range Rover, the Jaguar XF and XJ and the XF Sportbrake.

It is estimated that the 40MW farm off the north-west coast of Lewis will ultimately produce enough energy to power around 30,000 homes.

Wave energy firm Aquamarine Power said it would begin installing its Oyster devices in the next few years, once grid infrastructure is put in place. The project will be carried out by Aquamarine subsidiary Lewis Wave Power Limited.