SSE and RWE npower have been given the go-ahead for a £1 billion offshore wind farm.

Oil and gas explorer Petroceltic International, which bought Edinburgh-based Melrose Resources last year, has abandoned an exploration well off the Bulgarian coast after it failed to find enough gas to justify commercial production.

WOOD Group has won a five-year contract to support deepwater oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Parkmead chief executive Tom Cross hailed the firm’s most important deal to date today as he snapped up North Sea minnow Lochard Energy for less than its market value.

]]> 1.2940959 Thu, 23 May 2013 07:42:52 +0100 http://www.scotsman.com/bowleven-hails-success-of-cameroon-well-tests-1-2940153

SHARES in Africa-focused oil and gas explorer Bowleven rose yesterday after the latest positive update from its test well off the coast of Cameroon.

Plans to redevelop the Shell Centre on London’s South Bank have been approved, developers have said.

]]> 1.2940148 Wed, 22 May 2013 18:30:26 +0100 http://www.scotsman.com/sse-s-ian-marchant-wants-end-to-interventionitis-1-2939324

OUTGOING SSE chief executive Ian Marchant today launched a final broadside against the growing culture of “interventionitis” that is engulfing the UK’s energy sector.

North Sea driller Xcite Energy gave investors a fillip yesterday with news it had raised $15 million (£9.8m) by selling some of the data from its massive Bentley well.

Engineering and shipping firm James Fisher has won a two-year contract, worth almost £5m, to support the clean-up at the decommissioned Dounreay nuclear power plant.

THE pace of development in Aberdeen has quickened as projects aimed at the region’s buoyant oil and gas industry come on stream.

Bruce Dingwall co-founded one of the first and biggest independent oil and gas companies in the North Sea before it was swallowed up by Centrica in a £1.2 billion deal in 2009.

SSE CHIEF executive Ian Marchant will attempt this week to draw a line under the company’s mis-selling scandal, putting an end to what has been an uncomfortable close to his ten-year tenure.

MORE than 60 wood pellet-burning biomass boilers are to be installed in leisure centres, schools and other community facilities following a £10 million injection involving the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB).

Energy group SSE has agreed to buy a controversial Highlands wind farm project, in which it will invest about £200 million.

GLENCORE bosses tightened their grip on the newly enlarged miner and trader yesterday, as shareholders voted out all former Xstrata directors, including the already outgoing chairman, replacing him with former BP boss Tony Hayward.

OIL services firm Petrofac expects modest growth in net profit this year after its books were hit by the shutdown of a gas plant in Algeria.

Shareholders in Cairn Energy have overwhelmingly backed its executive pay plans, a year after the Edinburgh-based oil explorer suffered a backlash over bonuses for its chairman, Sir Bill Gammell.

More than 200 jobs Scottish coal jobs have been saved after energy and waste services group Hargreaves Services agreed to buy “certain assets” of miner Aardvark, which is being wound up.

SSE, the Perth-based utility giant, remained tight-lipped yesterday over the details reached in a settlement between one of its joint venture companies and construction firm Fluor over the quality of the foundations built for some turbines at one of its offshore wind farms.

ALLISTER Langlands yesterday survived a protest vote against his promotion to chairman at Wood Group, where he is the second former chief executive to hold that position.