Energy

Against a backdrop of low, weathered mountains and the scorched desert of north Western Australia lies the Pilbara, the closest sizeable reserve of iron ore to the rapidly expanding Chinese and Indian markets. It is here amidst some of the oldest rocks found on Earth that Rio Tinto is mining some of the planet’s largest iron ore deposits.

Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are a type of frozen "cage" of molecules of methane and water, and if Japan’s claims are accurate their achievement would go down as a world first.

Pilot experiments in recent years, using methane hydrates found under land ice, have shown that methane can be extracted from the deposits. Japan says its engineers used a depressurisation method that turns methane hydrate into methane gas. Production tests are expected to continue for about two weeks.

Devised as a way of alleviating Pakistan’s chronic energy shortages, the pipeline has almost been completed on the Iranian side with construction set to begin imminently in Pakistan.

A nationwide power cut last month was blamed on a technical fault in a plant in south-western Balochistan province, but it highlighted the energy challenges the country faces.

A total of 780 kilometres of pipeline is due to be built in the country over the next two years.

The wind project, which will be the largest single private investment in Kenya’s history, has the added backing of the African Development Bank, Kenya Power and Vision 2030. The signing of the Letter of Support for the project will now allow it to enter the final phase of financing.

According to numerous geological surveys and available seismic data, the country of Iraq possesses what might well be one of the largest collections of oil reserves on the planet, estimated to total over 350 billion barrels. However decades of sanctions, two Gulf Wars and the subsequent years of civil unrest left its oil infrastructure in dire need of modernisation and investment.

Companies looking for offshore energy invested some £11.4 billion in 2012, a figure that will rise to £13 billion.

The Canadian government’s recent approval of China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) bid to buy Nexen, Inc. set oil and gas insiders abuzz: is it another smart strategic move in China’s massive chess game to ensure adequate and stable energy supplies for its ever-growing needs, or a calculated effort to gain entry to the North American, and more worrisome, the US energy patch?

The company has revealed that two columns of oil have been found since drilling operations commenced in November at the Darwin field, about 80 miles north-east of Shetland. Further tests on both discoveries will now take place.

Leo Koot, managing director of TAQA's UK oil and gas business, said: "This discovery proves that the North Sea still has great potential."

The deal, which had been backed by Canadian authorities yet still required US approval, is worth $15.1 billion and represents China’s largest ever foreign takeover.

Joshua Zive of Bracewell & Guiliani, a Washington-based lobbying firm said the approval for CNOOC's latest deal "is likely to be viewed as a positive development. That, in the current climate, is a moment of significance.”

Agreed on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, the 50 year production sharing deal between Kiev and Shell is thought to be the biggest contract in Europe to extract natural gas trapped in shale rock.