Europe

The world’s second most used metal after steel, aluminium is blessed with a host of positive characteristics that have made its use invaluable to the modern world. The most common metal found in the earth’s crust, it possesses a remarkably low weight-to-strength ratio, high resistance to corrosion, is easy to shape and is 100 percent recyclable.

The deal, estimated to have cost Intel around $25 million, will see the chipmaker’s logo appear on the inside of players’ shirts. This means that the Intel logo will be on display when players lift their shirts in celebration of scoring a goal. The partnership will also see Intel providing technology to the clubs players and its coaching staff.

In more than two decades since the first wind farm project was realised in 1992 at Bellacorrick, County Mayo, wind energy’s contribution to Ireland’s electricity supply has steadily risen to the point where it had installed 1.7GW of capacity by the end of 2012.

With the country now tasked with achieving its national targets for renewable energy by 2020, which calls for 40 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources, an estimated 5,500 to 6,000MW of wind generation is required.

The deal, approved by 99.5 percent of Nokia’s 3,900 investors, will see the technology giant pay 5.4 billion euros ($7.2 billion). This will also see it acquire licence patents from the phonemaker.

The transaction, announced in September, has not been met with universal appeal, particularly amongst Finns who regard the phone company as a national success. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Nokia has seen its share of the smartphone market shrink at a time when Apple and Samsung have risen in stature.

For the cool price of $83 million, well-known New York diamond cutter Isaac Wolf purchased the diamond known as the Pink Star.

Measuring 2.69 centimetres by 2.06 centimetres and set on a ring, the diamond, now renamed the Pink Dream by its new owner, was mined by De Beers in 1999, in an unspecified African country. The winning bid, which includes the cost of auctioneer Sotheby’s commission, far surpasses the $46.2m paid for the Graff Pink diamond three years ago, which was half the size of the Pink Star.

Britain’s new global shipping port welcomed its first scheduled vessel, the ‘MOL Caledon’ from South Africa on Thursday, November 7.  After more than a decade of planning and construction across three square miles of development, DP World London Gateway deep-sea port is now open, providing British exporters and importers with a more efficient way to ship globally, at less cost. The £1.5billion facility at Thurrock, Essex, is 20 miles downriver from London.

Following a lacklustre second quarter for the European oil and gas sector, there were distinct signs of improvement in the three months to September, with eleven disclosed value deals taking place, between them worth $2.96 billion. While it is true that the lion’s share of this is accounted for by just one deal, the $2.65 billion purchase of North Sea assets from Statoil by Austrian company OMV, analysts feel that this could be a sign that the second quarter was an exception and stimulate a greater volume of deals going forward.

The Ancient Mariner complained abut the lack of drinking water on his ship in 1798 but fails to mention (perhaps Coleridge didn’t know) that Samuel Pepys had requested one of his naval captains to carry out “… an Experiment of producing fresh water (at Sea) out of Salt” as early as 1684. The outcome of that is not known, but it can’t have been that successful as onboard desalination doesn’t seem to have progressed much until the invention of the multi-stage flash (MSV) distillation process in 1955.

In the last four decades no fewer than 698 offshore fields have been discovered in the UK Continental Shelf, producing in that time some 41 billion barrels of oil and gas. With another 20 billion barrels estimated to remain untapped it comes as little surprise that the North Sea continues to be a huge boon to the UK and other surrounding nations.

For some companies their very name has come to be synonymous with their particular area of industry. Think mobile phones or tablets and Apple springs to mind. For oil and gas it will be BP or Royal Dutch Shell, while mention of the fast food sector immediately conjures up images of McDonalds or Burger King. While these businesses are hugely different when it comes to what they do, what they share is the fact that their strong history and track records of success have made them the leaders in their field.