Author: omc_admin

With the ceremonial ground-breaking, construction has officially begun on the second and largest phase of the battery cell research and production facility (FFB Fab) in Münster, Germany. The expansion will enable large-scale, gigawatt-level production research. Covering a space of 20,000 square metres, the new site will house state-of-the-art production and research facilities aimed at enabling industrial-scale research and development in the gigawatt range, according to Fraunhofer FFB. Completion of the construction phase is scheduled for the end of 2027. The smaller FFB PreFab, featuring around 6,800 square metres of research space, has been operational since late April 2024. Professor Achim…

The British military has banned EVs with ‘Chinese parts’ from a secretive site in Cambridge, amid long-standing surveillance concerns. This affects not only Chinese-manufactured BEVs, but those featuring components manufactured in China. According to The i Paper, Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff working at the RAF Wyton military base in Cambridgeshire have been told to park their EVs a minimum of two miles away from key buildings. Certain BEVs have also been banned from the UK’s military training ground on Salisbury Plain in Somerset. James Bore, a cybersecurity expert, told The i Paper that EVs have the potential for ‘misuse’…

Will Ongoing Supply Concerns Drag Oil Prices Lower? Oil is heading for a weekly loss of over 2% as oversupply fears and shaky demand outlooks weigh heavily on the market. Analysts from LSEG highlighted persistent concerns about rising OPEC+ output and a stronger U.S. dollar adding further pressure to prices. Recent suggestions that OPEC+ could accelerate production hikes as early as June have fueled bearish sentiment. How Are Trade Tensions Between the U.S. and China Impacting Crude Oil? Hopes for a thaw in U.S.-China trade relations were dashed when China’s foreign ministry denied any active tariff talks, contradicting earlier claims…

AccuWeather long-range experts are predicting wildfires to burn more land across the United States this year compared to the historical average, AccuWeather stated in a media advisory sent to Rigzone this week by the AccuWeather team. “We’ve seen fires reported across 20 states that have already burned nearly one million acres so far this year,” AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok said in the advisory. “AccuWeather is forecasting seven to nine million acres to burn across the country this year, which is more than the historical average,” he added. In the advisory, AccuWeather highlighted that nearly nine million acres burned…

Saipem SpA has reported EUR 77 million ($87.45 million) in net income for the first quarter (Q1), up 35.1 percent from the same three-month period a year ago on the back of improvements in both its onshore and offshore engineering and construction segments. Revenue rose 15.5 percent year-on-year to EUR 3.52 billion. Operating profit climbed 27.6 percent to EUR 157 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased 31 percent to EUR 351 million. “In addition to the positive change in adjusted operating profit of EUR 34 million, there was also the effect of the improvement in the balance…

Walmart has once again claimed the top spot on the NRF Top 50 Global Retailers list for 2025, with Amazon and Costco also landing in the top five. The annual ranking, produced by the National Retail Federation and Kantar, highlights the retailers with the biggest international reach and strongest performance. In 2024, more people shopped in stores again, while online sales cooled off. Retailers had to stay sharp with logistics and inventory to keep up. What’s RelatedAmazon, ranked second, brought in $393 billion, followed by Germany’s Schwarz Group at third with $182 billion. Aldi and Costco rounded out the top…

UPS is making another big move in healthcare by buying Canada’s Andlauer Healthcare Group (AHG) for $1.6 billion. The all-cash deal will bring AHG’s temperature-controlled warehouses and trucking network into UPS’s healthcare business, helping the company handle sensitive medical shipments across North America. What’s RelatedAHG, based in Vaughan, Ontario, specializes in moving pharmaceutical products, vaccines, and other temperature-sensitive treatments that require cold storage. It operates nine distribution centers and 22 branches across Canada. In 2024, the company pulled in around $468 million in revenue, more than half of it from ground transportation. UPS says this acquisition will help it keep…

ADVERTISEMENTA cross-party group of members of the European Parliament has penned a joint letter urging Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to take “all necessary measures” to block new sales of Greek-owned vessels to Russia, warning these transactions are helping the Kremlin sustain its shadow fleet and bypass the G7 price cap on oil.The MEPs also demand further measures to curb ship-to-ship transfers, a technique used to conceal the provenance of the merchandise, and to discourage Greek companies from transporting Russian oil.The letter was endorsed by 36 lawmakers from different countries and political parties and sent to the prime minister’s office…

In a statement posted on social media, Rhino Resources Ltd announced the discovery of hydrocarbons at the Capricornus 1-X well, which is situated in Petroleum Exploration License 85, in Block 2914, offshore the Orange Basin in Namibia. The well was spudded on February 17 using the Noble Venturer drillship and reached a total depth of 16,263 feet on April 2, the statement revealed, adding that the well found over 124 feet of net pay, “with the reservoir showing good petrophysical properties and no observed water contact”. Hydrocarbon samples and sidewall cores were collected through intensive wireline logging operations, Rhino noted…

Eni SpA and the United Kingdom government have reached financial close on the Liverpool Bay carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, allowing the project to proceed to construction, the Italian operator said Thursday. The project will provide the transport and storage infrastructure for the HyNet North West Industrial Decarbonization Cluster project, which spans North West England and North Wales. Planned to reach 4.5 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage capacity by 2030, HyNet will store captured emissions in depleted hydrocarbon fields in the Irish Sea. The HyNet consortium, led by Eni, plans to expand the…