Europe

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.

Operations at one of Europe’s largest coal producers are underpinned by strong customer relationships, the continued implementation of top-class training and safety measures, and solid revenues and reserves.

Coal represents the Czech Republic’s only significant indigenous energy resource; and as such, its importance to the economy in relation to export revenue and employment cannot be understated, and is as crucial today as it has been for the last two centuries.

National Grid UK has signed a deal with global renewable energy developer Element Power, awarding it a firm grid connection of 3,000 megawatts.

The agreement enables Element Power to progress ‘Greenwire’—a series of connected projects exporting wind power generated in the Midlands of Ireland to consumers in the UK, via two independent subsea cables.

The UK’s transport secretary is expected to unveil £9 billion of investment for UK railways later today.

The UK rail investment plan for 2014 to 2019, to be unveiled by transport secretary Justine Greening, includes a commitment to provide electric trains on the Midland Main Line from Bedford to Sheffield and Leicester; on local lines in the Welsh Valleys, and between Manchester and Leeds.

Vodafone Group has announced its acquisition of the New Zealand business of Telstra Corporation for £430 million.

The acquisition of TelstraClear was made through Vodafone New Zealand, the country’s largest mobile operator with more than 2.4 million customers. TelstraClear is the second largest fixed operator in New Zealand with a customer base that includes government and large corporations, and small & medium enterprises, as well as consumers. 

One of Poland’s biggest companies has embarked upon a campaign of global expansion, positioning it among the world’s largest copper and silver producers and paving the way for future growth.

BMW Group has today announced a £250 million investment in its UK manufacturing operations by the end of 2015.

The investment will be made at BMW’s manufacturing plant in Oxford, its steel body pressings operation at Swindon and its engine plant at Hams Hall near Birmingham, to support the company’s international growth strategy for the MINI brand with increasing volumes and up to 10 different models in the new line-up in the mid-term.

The move comes on top of the £500 million UK investment announced in June 2011 and will secure 5,500 UK jobs.

Chemicals manufacturer BASF has said it will expand its vinylformamide (VFA) capacity in Germany and China in order to meet growing global demand.

The company will expand its manufacturing plant for VFA in Ludwigshafen, Germany, as well as increasing its polymerization capacity. It will also build a new polymerization line for VFA in China for further processing of the feedstock from Ludwigshafen. This facility will be built at the Zhenjiang site, Jiangsu province.

Airline services company Gate Gourmet has agreed to acquire catering facilities owned by Qantas Catering Group in Australia.

The catering businesses, run by Q Catering, are a Riverside facility in Sydney and a Cairns-based operation in Queensland. Both offer a full suite of catering services, including menu development; meal production; aircraft provisioning; post-arrival unloading; and dishwashing and equipment warehousing. The Cairns facility also offers cabin cleaning.