India will mandate the use of solar cells made locally in all clean energy projects by June 2026
From June 2026, Indian clean energy companies will have to use solar photovoltaic modules made from local cells by a list of approved companies. This is a measure to reduce imports from China, the top supplier. India has already required the use of solar cells made in India for government projects. The government intends to increase the non-fossil energy capacity of its country to 500 GW from 156 GW currently. India currently has a capacity to produce solar PV modules of around 80 gigawatts, while its capacity to manufacture cells is slightly over 7 GW. Companies rely heavily on Chinese cells for the production of modules.
Source: Natron plans to build a $1.4 billion sodium-ion batteries plant in North Carolina
Sources familiar with the situation said that Natron Energy is planning to invest $1.4 Billion in a manufacturing plant for sodium-ion batteries in North Carolina. This could potentially increase the company's capacity by 40 fold. The battery storage facility in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, is capable of producing 24 gigawatts of power at full capacity every year. The company currently produces 600 megawatts of sodium-ion batteries annually at its Holland Michigan facility. U.S. startups and European ones are racing to create new batteries with materials that are cheap and plentiful, such as sodium.
US offers conditional loan guarantees of $1.5 billion to Qcells in Georgia for solar plant
The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Thursday that it has made a conditional commitment of up $1.45 billion in loan guarantees to South Korea's Qcells for the company's Cartersville, Georgia solar manufacturing plant. The Loan Programs Office of the agency said that funding will help Qcells construct a $2.5 Billion facility to produce solar panels, as well as inputs such a cells, ingots, and wafers. The department stated that the factory could produce enough panels to cover half a million American homes per year. Qcells has won a victory with this announcement. The company had warned about the threat of cheap imports to U.S. Solar factories.
Siemens Gamesa Confirms Fécamp Wind Turbine Deal
After EDF Renewables, Enbridge, and wpd on Tuesday announced the sanctioning of the $2,2 billion Fécamp offshore wind project in France, Siemens Gamesa has confirmed it has received the firm order for the supply of wind turbines for the project.The offshore wind turbine maker will deliver 71 SWT-7.0-154 offshore wind turbines each with capacity of 7 MW. Siemens Gamesa has also secured a 15-year maintenance contract for the 497 MW project located in Normandy.The turbines will be manufactured in the wind turbine plant Siemens Gamesa is to build in Le Havre…
Siemens Gamesa Buys Senvion Wind Biz
German-Spanish wind turbine manufacturing giant Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has agreed a $225m deal to buy 8.9GW of the European onshore service business of embattled Germany-based rival Senvion along with its smaller rival’s blade factory in Portugal.Senvion´s European service assets will strengthen Siemens Gamesa´s capacity and potential in an important segment. The acquisition of a Service fleet of 8.9GW from Senvion will take Siemens Gamesa to a total of nearly 69GW under maintenance, explained the turbine manufacturer…
MHI Vestas: Brexit Will Not Deter Investment in Britain's Wind Sector
Japanese-Danish joint venture MHI Vestas plans to continue investing in its wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Britain, despite the country's impending departure from the European Union, its chief executive told Reuters.MHI Vestas, a venture between Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, makes wind turbine blades on the Isle of Wight, off the southern English coast.Some 76 percent of the turbine blades made at the site in 2019 will be exported to projects in Europe but Philippe Kavafyan…
Wellhead Expertise for ADNOC
Weir Oil & Gas Pressure Control Dubai has been awarded its first three-year contract to provide in-country wellhead equipment and services to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Onshore from its API 6A manufacturing plant in Dubai.The hardware and services agreement will see Weir Oil & Gas engineers delivering Wellhead production to include 1,100 total surface landing systems specifically manufactured in the UAE’s first and only API 6A Wellhead manufacturing plant.“This contract signals a substantial step forward that is…
Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining
When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing. He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course. "I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner. Despite broad consensus about coal's bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Suncor to Grow Oil Sands as Oil Majors Flee
Even as the world's largest energy companies exit Canada's high-cost oil sands the country's top producer Suncor Energy is lining up its next phase of growth in the world's third largest crude reserves. The preliminary plans for new projects in remote northern Alberta follow a stream of multi-billion dollar deals in which international oil majors sold off oil sands assets to Canadian producers, who are betting technology and economies of scale will make the region competitive with other plays globally. Suncor said on Monday it will file a regulatory application for its 160…
Yaskawa Announces Expansion Plan in Europe
Japanese technology group Yaskawa announced that it will intensify its presence in Europe, with the aim of becoming one of the two leading manufacturers of industrial robots in strategic target markets in the medium term. This investment plan follows a successful first wave of expansion initiated in 2014, which included the acquisition of The Switch, one of the leading manufacturers of advanced drive train technology for the marine, wind energy and industrial sectors. This makes Yaskawa one of the few global companies able to supply components and solutions for almost all industries from a single source.
Technip Bags Woodside's Subsea Contract
Technip has been awarded a large(1) subsea contract by Woodside to support the development of the Greater Enfield Project offshore Western Australia, at a water depth comprised between 340 and 850 meters. - multi-phase pump system (transport and installation). Technip’s operating center in Perth, Australia will execute the contract with support from Technip’s Asia Pacific Subsea Hub in the Kuala Lumpur office in Malaysia, and office in Chennai, India. - the umbilicals will be supplied by Technip Umbilicals’ facility located in Newcastle, UK.
Technip Certified in 5 More Countries to EDGE Standard
Technip and EDGE Certified Foundation announce today that Technip entities in Australia, Malaysia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and United States have been certified to the EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) global standard for gender equality in the workplace. These five additional certifications follow those obtained last year by Technip in Brazil, France and Italy. EDGE is the leading global assessment methodology and business certification standard for gender equality applicable across all industries and countries.
China to Loan South Africa's Power Firm Eskom $500 mln
China will loan South Africa's struggling power utility $500 million as part of deals agreed on Wednesday between the two countries worth 94 billion rand ($6.5 billion), the South African government said. China will also help to build a car manufacturing plant on South Africa's coast which should begin exporting vehicles to other African countries by the end of 2017. (Reporting by Joe Brock)
Shell to Expand Alpha Olefins Production
Press release - Shell Chemical LP (Shell) has announced the final investment decision to increase Alpha Olefins (AO) production at its chemical manufacturing site in Geismar, Louisiana, making the site the largest AO producer in the world. Shell will construct a fourth AO unit, adding 425,000 tonnes of capacity. The chemical site is used in the production of stronger and lighter polyethylene plastic for packaging and bottles, as well as engine and industrial oils and drilling fluids. “This important investment demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the growth potential in chemicals…
GE to Move US Engine Plant to Canada
General Electric Co said on Monday it will move production of large, gas-powered engines to Canada from Waukesha, Wisconsin, along with 350 jobs, to access export financing no longer available in the United States. In its latest salvo aimed at persuading Congress to renew the U.S. Export-Import Bank's charter which expired in June, GE will invest $265 million in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant at a Canadian location yet to be determined. The facility, to open in about 20 months, can be expanded to provide flexible manufacturing capacity to support other GE businesses, including engines for railroad locomotives, GE said.
MacGregor Launches Training Center for Offshore Davit Operations
MacGregor launches a new training centre in its Aberdeen office in the UK to deliver specialists skills and competencies to its engineers and customers. Aberdeen office is the leading launch and recovery service provider within MacGregor’s Global Lifecycle Support Division. Central to the training centre has been the creation of a bespoke, real-time davit training rig, which replicates the operation of onboard work boat and lifeboat launch and recovery davit systems including towing boom operation. By having the training centre…
Technip Bags 2 Stone Energy's Contracts
Technip has been awarded by Stone Energy Corporation both a flexible pipe supply contract and an installation contract for the Amethyst field, located on Mississippi Canyon 26, in the Gulf of Mexico. The first contract includes the detailed engineering, procurement, fabrication, assembly and testing of a 5-inch production static riser (almost 9 kilometers long) as well as all associated hardware. The second award covers the installation of the pipe as a tieback to the Pompano fixed platform, in approximately 395 meters of water depth.
Technip to Modernize Flexi France
Technip announces an investment over four years to modernize its flexible pipe manufacturing plant, Flexi France, in Le Trait, France. Further strengthening Technip’s expertise and industrial capabilities at the site will reinforce its global position in the production of flexible pipes, for the development of offshore oil and gas fields. This modernization plan focuses on the installation of new-generation machines and site optimization to fit 12 meter diameter reels, on which flexible pipes are spooled. Increasing the reel capacity from 9.6 to 12 meters in diameter will provide room for twice as much flexible pipes on each reel.
ZeoGas hires Foster Wheeler to Plan Gulf Coast Project
Foster Wheeler AG announced today that a subsidiary of its Global Engineering and Construction Group has entered into a Collaboration Agreement with ZeoGas LLC. In the first instance, Foster Wheeler will support ZeoGas’ final site selection and project planning towards the development of ZeoGas’ first fuels manufacturing plant, to be located on the US Gulf Coast. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and the contract value for an initial release of work related to the development of a cost estimate and assistance in final site selection and due diligence will be included in the company’s third-quarter 2014 bookings.
TDW Helps Relieve Stress on Riser Offshore Malaysia
T.D. Williamson (TDW) announced that it recently completed a comprehensive pipeline services program for a major offshore operator to assist with efforts to relieve increasing contact stress between a gas export riser and platform jacket offshore East Malaysia. Due to changes in seabed conditions, the platform jacket had moved, producing stress on the gas export riser attached to the platform jacket. The stress was most acute at the contact point between the bracings - or riser clamps - that anchor the riser to the platform structure.
