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OIL & GAS Deal expected by end of the year Group has delayed main market move Royal Dutch Shell is poised to take a large stake in Sibir Energy, the [...]

LEISURE GOODS Enterprise Inns sought to reassure investors over its financial health yesterday, saying it had shelved plans to convert to real estate investment trust status and would step up [...]

SUPPORT SERVICES Future of US arm to be reviewed Further job cuts and disposals likely Wolseley has moved to reassure investors it will remain within its banking covenants by promising [...]

CONSTRUCTION Wolseley has moved to reassure investors that it will remain within its banking covenants by promising a review of its lossmaking US building supplies business, further job cuts, more [...]

SUPPORT SERVICES Travis Perkins is to cut staffing levels and put acquisitions on hold as it shores up cash for what it expects to be a protracted downturn. The builders' [...]

ELECTRICITY Centrica has fulfilled a long-standing vow to take control of Belgian power company SPE, frustrating Gaz de France's plans to sell its stake to EDF. The British-based utility exercised [...]

Rio Tinto has more than doubled its first-half exploration and evaluation work to $401m ([pounds sterling]200m) compared with last year. In its quarterly review of operations, the Anglo-Australian miner also [...]

electricity British Energy, the UK nuclear generator, yesterday blamed lower realised electricity prices and shut-downs at its ageing reactors for a 'disappointing' 32 per cent fall in full-year pre-tax profits [...]

Shares in TGE, the gas carrier engineer, will begin trading on Aim on Thursday. With a total offer size of [euro]85m ([pounds sterling]67m), the float will be one of the [...]

3i, the venture capital group, is selling its stake in Reeves Oilfield Services to Precision, the leading Canadian drilling services company. 3i, which backed a Pounds 9m management buy-out of [...]

Shares in John Wood Group slid 11 per cent yesterday as its trading statement added to gloom in the oil field services sector. The company said 2003 revenues would increase [...]

Royal Dutch/Shellyesterday quantified progress in its campaign to upgrade its portfolio and boost the return on average capital employed from 13 per cent to 15 per cent. Disposals for 2003 [...]

Cairn Energy is toacquire Royal Dutch/Shell's upstream assets in Bangladesh for Dollars 50m (Pounds 29.7m) cash plus royalty payments that analysts estimate could be worth Dollars 25m. The oil exploration [...]

Braemar Seascope will today announce the acquisition of Cory Brothers, the ship agency, for Pounds 1.5m cash. It is understood that the acquisition will be earnings-enhancing in the first full [...]

Tullow Oil has agreed to buy a further 23.3 per cent stake in the Thames complex of gas fields. The London-listed independent oil company will pay Eni of Italy Pounds [...]

Pechiney yesterday completed its defence team to contest the hostile Euros 3.4bn (USDollars 3.8bn) bid from Alcan as it emerged that the European Commission's assessment could stretch into December. The [...]

Faroe Petroleum is to become the first Faroese company to obtain a stock listing anywhere when it joins Aim this month via a Pounds 15m institutional placing. The company is [...]

Ashanti Goldfields said it was continuing merger talks with South Africa's AngloGold as the Ghanaian company reported a 61 per cent fall in first-quarter profits. Ashanti said the government of [...]

Premier Oil has moved to win a slice of the promising oil acreage offshore north-west Africa, acquiring stakes in the Chinguetti and Banda discoveries from Fusion, the Anglo-Australian explorer. The [...]

Consort Resources, the oil and gas company founded by Lord Moynihan, the former Conservative energy minister, is confident it can raise Pounds 200m in a trade sale expected to be [...]

National Grid Transco yesterday increased its merger savings target from Pounds 100m to Pounds 135m a year as it reported underlying pro forma profits of Pounds 1.25m (Pounds 1.13m) for [...]

JKX Oil & Gas said yesterday it had agreed with the government of Ukraine to exercise its priority right to purchase the 33.8 per cent state holding in Poltava Petroleum. [...]

Lundin Petroleum, the Swedish oil company, said yesterday it would sell its 40 per cent stake in a Sudanese development project in order to fund an acquisition elsewhere, possibly in [...]

Tullow Oil signalled further acquisitions and a 1p dividend yesterday, as it reported a 41 per cent rise in 2002 pre-tax profits from Pounds 16m to Pounds 22.5m last year. [...]

Severn Trent warned that operating profits at Biffa, its waste management arm, could be down by as much as 10 per cent, although the water and waste group said it [...]

Dana Petroleum yesterday reported record profits and production for 2002 and is forecast to triple earnings and double production in 2003. Pre-tax profits were up 7 per cent at Pounds [...]

JKX Oil & Gas hopes to acquire a small Russian production company and is in negotiations over a production sharing agreement for a field in Azerbaijan. Yesterday the company proposed [...]

The June 1999 agreement to merge British Steel and Hoogovens of the Nether-lands brought together two profitable companies with combined sales of Pounds 10bn a year and combined stock market [...]