Energy

The Lodi Energy Center Project is scheduled for completion by mid-2012, which means that contractors will be racing the clock—and awaiting final design—even after the shovels hit the dirt this summer. Keith Regan learns how the project will help augment existing energy production capabilities with greener power and how the lead general contractor plans to leverage its extensive experience to bring the work in on time.

French power giant GDF Suez is expected to announce it has taken over its UK rival International Power (IP) as early as tomorrow.

The two companies had resumed talks after failing to agree a deal earlier this year, with GDF now believed to be offering a special dividend of £1.3 billion to sweeten the agreement for IP investors.

A deal with GDF would create one of the world’s biggest independent power generators, with estimated sales of €13.5 billion. The enlarged group would keep the name International Power.

Russia has signed a deal to provide South African nuclear power stations with uranium until at least 2017.

The contract, signed in Moscow following talks between Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev and South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma, comes into effect next year.

The deal involves South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom and Tenex, a unit of Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom. Tenex will provide South Africa’s only nuclear plant, Koeberg, which is operated by Eskom, with uranium supplies for 10 years.

Reliance Industries, India’s biggest company by market value, agreed to buy its third shale gas asset in the US this year, acquiring a 60 percent stake in acreages from Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. and its partner.

Reliance will pay $392 million for the stake in the Marcellus shale gas areas of central and north-east Pennsylvania. The Mumbai-based company will pay $340 million in cash and cover part of Carrizo’s drilling costs over two years.

Drax, the UK’s biggest power station, has said that government reforms of subsidies for renewable energy have put the company’s planned biomass expansion in jeopardy.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the UK government’s new subsidy rules have made it hard for the company to make the case to shareholders for its planned £2 billion biomass investment.

EDFof France is to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI) of Hong Kong for £5.8 billion.

EDF's UK unit, EDF Energy Networks, distributes electricity to 7.8 million customers and generates around a fifth of Britain's electricity.

In acquiring EDF Networks, CKI has obtained low-voltage electricity distribution networks in the east and south of England, and ongoing contracts with businesses including the London Underground, Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and the Channel Tunnel.

Shareholders in Dana Petroleum are attempting to force the UK-based oil explorer to open takeover talks with South Korean suitor Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC), according to reports.

The Financial Times has reported that Schroders, Dana's biggest shareholder with a 13 per cent stake, has urged its board to engage with KNOC over its £1.67 billion indicative offer.

Oil field services provider Halliburton reported an 83 percent rise in profits for the second quarter, despite the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thanks to an increase in land-based drilling activity in North America and improved business abroad, net income came in at $480 million (53 cents a share) for the three months April through June, compared with $262 million (29 cents a share) in the same quarter last year. The results beat analysts' expectations by about 15 cents.

Honeywell FM&T has been manufacturing and supplying components for national defense systems for more than 60 years. Operational excellence manager Barbara Rich tells Gay Sutton how the company has achieved this enviable record.