BRAZILIAN state operator Petrobras expects to spend about $300million on exploring its Turkish Black Sea concessions over the next two years, according to the company’s international director, Jorge Zelada.

PETROBRAS has made an oil find in offshore Brazil acreage dropped by Shell.

SMART energy is the focus of a Society of Petroleum Engineers conference in Aberdeen on June 9-10. It is the result of feedback from the SPE community in Britain.

CAPITOL Hill Democrats negotiating a major energy and climate bill have reached a tentative agreement that could lead to a US renewables power generation target of 15% by 2020 – on a par with the UK’s aspiration.

AFTER the massive setback of Shell pulling back and a period in the wilderness, partners in the world’s largest offshore windfarm, the London Array, have regrouped and construction will start this summer. The trigger to the decision was the UK Government’s 2009 Budget decision to offer enhanced incentive payments via renewables obligation certificates.

AN INNOVATIVE three-in-one solution for providing clean energy from the sun has won this year’s St Andrews Prize for the Environment.

DAIMLER, Shell, Total, Vattenfall Europe and hySOLUTIONS have signed an agreement with Hamburg to build a low-emission fleet of vehicles and the accompanying infrastructure.

CALEDUS is teaming up with its Malaysia agent to forge a joint-venture company in a bid to better capitalise on South-east Asia market opportunities.

AT A time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the US, scientists in Minnesota are reporting that production of bio-ethanol may consume up to three times more water than previously thought.

AFGHANISTAN has launched its first oil&gas bidding round after many years of exile from the petroleum community.

STX Norway Offshore has been contracted to construct three North Caspian capability icebreaker tugs for JSC Circle Marine Invest.

MAERSK Olie has made what is described as a significant gas discovery in the Danish sector of the North Sea on block 9/06.

CHINA National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has launched the first batch of offshore blocks in its 2009 licensing round, with 17 blocks in the South China Sea open to bidding by foreign operators.

THE best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing energy crops on a grand scale or glowing inside nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University in the US. He says that currently fashionable “clean coal” – which involves capturing carbon emissions and sequestering them in the earth, and which is currently flavour of the political month here in Britain – is not clean at all.

STATOIL is calling it a day with the Lufeng field after more than 12 years of production.

NORWAY has stood back from potential conflict with other Arctic territorial claimants such as Russia by defining its continental shelf to end in deep waters 550km south of the North Pole.

SIMMONS & Company International Limited has appointed Ken Murray as a non-executive adviser.

SEVAN Marine of Norway has signed a technology licence agreement with Eni Norge for the Sevan 1000 floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) which will be used for exploitation of the Goliat field in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea. It will be renamed Sevan Goliat.

NATIONAL Oilwell Varco has acquired oilfield equipment manufacturers and suppliers ASEP Group Holding and Anson.

NORWEGIAN company Electromagnetic Geoservices has secured a multi-client data-licensing contract with a major international exploration and production operator for Clearplay 3D electromagnetic (EM) data from the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The deal is worth about $5.8million.

AKER Solutions has been awarded a £34.7million contract by StatoilHydro for the delivery of a complete work-over system for subsea trees at the challenging Kristin field in the Norwegian Sea.

SAUDI petroleum minister Ali al-Naimi has warned that a “premature shift” to renewable energy sources could jeopardise investment in the oil sector and significantly slow global economic recovery.

DET Norske Veritas (DNV) has been chosen by the European Commission to facilitate a process to shorten the time from policy-making to industry implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

IN NORWAY, Grenland Group has picked up a contract worth about $5.4million from FMC Technologies for the construction of Troll B gas-injection subsea structures.

ELECTROMAGNETIC Geoservices (EMGS) of Norway has signed a global frame agreement with Shell for the provision of electromagnetic (EM) services for the next year, with optional extensions for two additional years. Most of the EM services will centre around EMGS’s 3D capabilities.

STATOILHYDRO and its partners in north-west Europe’s largest offshore gas field, Troll, have chopped some of the further investment planned due to cost inflation and the slump in hydrocarbons prices.

FMC Technologies has clinched a $75million (£55million) deal with Petrobras to engineer and manufacture four subsea manifolds and controls for its Roncador Module III project.

ENI Norge has submitted the plan for the development and operation of the Goliat field in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea to Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for its approval.

EGYPT is setting up an “independent” agency in a bid to make the North African state’s hydrocarbons exploration and production more competitive in order to attract more foreign players.

CHEVRON has delayed its decision on whether to pursue the final design stage of its Makassar Strait, Indonesia, gas development project offshore Indonesia’s East Kalimantan Province.