Scottish oil services giant Wood Group has announced it is to take over rival PSN in a £600 million deal.

The merger of the two Aberdeen-based firms will create the UK’s biggest oil services company. It will also be Wood’s largest acquisition to date.

PSN, an international energy services company, will merge with Wood’s Production Facilities business to create the brownfield production services provider, Wood Group PSN.

SunPower Corp, a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of high-efficiency solar cells, solar panels and solar systems, is set to expand with a major new corporate operations center in Austin, Texas.

The company announced today the receipt of a $2.5 million investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund and a $900,000 grant from the City of Austin. The new center will create 450 jobs in the region over the next four years, beginning with 115 jobs in 2011.

Balfour Beatty, the UK-based market leading infrastructure specialist, has won a five-year rail renewal contract on the London Underground system.

The contract is to carry out track renewal work, which will include the replacement of ballasted track, points and crossings, including all ancillary signalling and drainage works on the Tube network.

The total value of the work to be carried out by the partnership is £220 million, of which around half will be Balfour Beatty's share.

Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp today announced that Liberty Energy Utilities Co, its regulated utility subsidiary, is to acquire two utilities in New Hampshire from National Grid USA.

The Oakville, Ontario-based utility said Liberty Energy has entered into agreements to acquire all issued and outstanding shares of Granite State Electric Company, a regulated electric utility, and EnergyNorth Natural Gas Inc, a regulated natural gas utility, for a total consideration of US$285 million.

Steinhoff International Holdings is in exclusive talks with France’s PPR to buy its Conforama furniture business for a cash sum of €1.2 billion.

PPR is selling Marne-La-Vallée, France-based Conforama to focus on its Gucci Group luxury goods and Puma sporting goods divisions. The Paris-based company is also planning to sell the Fnac music chain and the mail-order retailer Redcats.

Ten companies, agencies and universities have joined an initiative between The Gas Company (TGC), one of Hawaii's major utilities, and General Motors to make hydrogen-powered vehicles and a fueling infrastructure a reality in Hawaii by 2015.

The plan, called the Hawaii Hydrogen Initiative (H(2)I), aims to integrate hydrogen as an essential building block for Hawaii's sustainable energy ecosystem.

HSBC Holdings has said in a report that Qatar may have to lift a moratorium on further development at North Field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir, in order to generate enough electricity to stage the 2022 World Cup.

According to a report by Bloomberg, analysts from HSBC Holdings suggested that increased power needs due to the influx of labour and energy requirements for new hotels could encourage the moratorium on additional gas exploration at North Field to be lifted.

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc, manufacturer of pharmaceutical packaging and delivery systems, today announced its intention to consolidate selected operations in order to improve operating efficiencies.

The company expects to close its manufacturing facility in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA, and to downsize operations at its facility in St. Austell, Cornwall, UK.

BP has approached a number of UK-focused energy companies about a potential sell-off of its North Sea assets, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

It is understood that the energy giant has met with utilities and oil companies to gauge their interest in the non-core fields, which are collectively worth around $1 billion.

BP is thought to have approached the organisations on a ‘pre-tender’ basis—ahead of any official auction—to gauge the level of interest.

Even the largest names in pharmaceuticals need some help from their friends from time to time, as Alan Swaby learns in discussion with Penn Pharma.

A career in pharmaceutical R&D is not for those with a short attention span. Perhaps growing bonsai needs more patience; but the painstaking search for new drugs can’t be far behind. Even when an exciting breakthrough is made in the form of a promising new molecule, the hard grind has barely begun.