Energy

Industrial gases and equipment supplier Air Products has announced it is to build an energy-from-waste plant in Teesside, UK.

The Tees Valley plant, located at the New Energy and Technology Business Park near Billingham, Teesside, will be the first of its kind in the UK, and will use advanced gasification energy-from-waste (EfW) technology.

The plant will be the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, with an approximate capacity of 50MW.

QED Connect has signed letters of intent to acquire 100 percent of Terra Resources and Kuma Oil, both oil and gas companies, and Kyrgyz Alumina, an aluminum mining company.

Terra, through its subsidiary company NV Alliance, has oil and gas rights in the Republic of Kalmykia, a subject of the Russian Federation. Kuma Oil, a Russian company, owns oil and gas rights in the Russian territory of Perm Krai.  

Renewable energy developer Mainstream Renewable Power has submitted an application for a 450MW offshore wind project off the Fife coast in Scotland.

The World Bank has approved US$85 million of funding to help the government of Senegal and the Senegal National Power Utility (SENELEC) to improve electricity services in the country.

The financing will be used over a five-year period to upgrade and modernise electricity transmission and distribution components; create more transparency and accountability within the energy sector; develop a medium and long term strategy for the energy sector; and upgrade SENELEC billing systems to reduce high collection costs and losses related to fraud.

A European consortium has embarked upon a €23.9 million project to design and deploy a 39 MWh energy storage facility in Puglia, Italy.

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.

Terra Nova Minerals Inc. has signed an agreement with Geokinetics (Australia) Pty. Ltd. of Brisbane, for a 127 square kilometre 3D seismic survey.

Geokinetics will undertake the survey on the northern boundary of Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) 112 on the western flank of the Cooper Eromanga Basin in South Australia.

The survey is expected to commence in early August 2012 and will include the shooting and processing of the 3D data acquired. Crews are currently in the field completing line clearing and survey work.

The United States figured ninth out of twelve in a new energy efficiency ranking of the world's major economies published today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The United Kingdom came in at No. 1 in the first ever International Energy Efficiency Scorecard, with Germany, Italy and Japan filling the next three places.

PetroSA’s Project Ikhwezi initiative has been granted regulatory approval by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

The project, which is PetroSA’s flagship initiative to secure additional reserves to sustain its Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery, will produce gas feedstock from the offshore F-O development fields.

PetroSA said the approval is a major milestone, allowing the National Oil Company to produce natural gas from the F-O development fields when the project is commissioned.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of the world’s largest oil company ExxonMobil, told a New York audience yesterday that fears about climate change, drilling and energy dependence were exaggerated.

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Tillerson acknowledged that burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming but questioned the ability of climate models to predict its impact.