Energy

Given the right background and a sound strategy, some businesses can take off like a rocket, as Alan Swaby discovers.

How would you take a start-up business from zero to a turnover of R2 billion in just five years? Well, the way that Johan Fouché did it was by creating an independent fuel wholesaling business, under the auspices of South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment programme (BEE).

Italian energy company Eni has signed a $17 billion (£11 billion) deal with Venezuela to develop crude oil fields and build a refinery.

Working with the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Eni will develop a major oil field in the eastern Orinoco river basin.

Some say that the last great hydrocarbon deposits lie within the Arctic Circle, and if so, it’s going to place extra demands on those extracting them, such as Technip Canada, Alan Swaby learns.

Irish oil and gas company Providence Resources has announced new interpretations of old data that suggest that a field off the west coat of Ireland contains as much as 200 million barrels of oil.

Providence’s Spanish Point project is located around 170 kilometres off the west coast of Ireland in the Porcupine Basin. Drilling, at a depth of 400 metres, is expected to begin in 2012, with oil and gas potentially flowing by late 2014 or 2015.

BP has announced the sale of its Southern African forecourt network to Puma Energy, a unit of international commodities trader Trafigura, for $296 million.

BP is selling its interests in forecourts and supply businesses in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi. The sales do not include BP's refining and marketing businesses in Mozambique or South Africa.

Angola's state-owned oil company Sonangol will buy a 10 per cent stake in Puma's newly acquired assets.

GE intends to purchase 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015 for use in its own fleet and its Capital Fleet Services business—the largest-ever single electric vehicle commitment—to help boost the market for electric vehicle infrastructure development.

GE offers a portfolio of solutions for electric vehicles including charging stations, circuit protection equipment and transformers.

GE will initially purchase 12,000 GM vehicles, beginning with the Chevrolet Volt in 2011, and will add other vehicles as manufacturers expand their electric vehicle portfolios.

Chevron Corporation has announced an agreement to acquire Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion, to provide it with a natural gas resource in southwestern Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale.

Chevron will pay $3.2 billion in cash and assume Atlas Energy’s outstanding debt of approximately $1.1 billion. The acquisition is subject to certain Atlas Energy restructuring transactions, approval by Atlas Energy shareholders and regulatory clearance. Atlas shareholders will receive a package worth $43.34 per share - a 37 percent premium to Monday's closing price.

Germany’s E.ON is in talks to sell its UK electricity distribution network for between £3.5 billion and £4 billion.

The utility group is understood to be in advanced discussions with a consortium consisting of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Canada Pension Fund and Macquarie for the purchase of its distribution network.

NuVision Engineering has over 40 years’ experience in nuclear energy generation and waste cleanup, is familiar with problems that arise in this sensitive field, and develops solutions to fix them.

Fulcrum BioEnergy is poised to begin construction on its first facility that will produce ethanol from household waste. Keith Regan learns how this trash-to-energy plant could be the first step toward a network of such facilities capable of producing a billion gallons a year of clean, renewable transportation fuel.