Petrofac (LSE: PFC) has announced that its Offshore Engineering & Operations business has secured a new contract worth £35 million with Britannia Operator Limited, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP).
Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ) has signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s largest nickel and platinum producer, the Jinchuan Group, to jointly develop the Aktogay copper project, which is located in the Ayoguz region in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Oil and gas engineering group and FTSE 250 constituent Weir Group (LSE: WEIR) has performed better than expected in Q1 with an improvement in activity levels across a number of key markets, leading it to expect H1 profits to be “substantially” ahead of the prior year period.
Oil and gas supermajor BP (LSE: BP) had a strong first quarter, achieving a 135% year-on-year jump in profits to US$5.6 billion due to higher oil prices that have bounced back to nearly US$90/barrel after falling to nearly US$30/barrel last year. The company also updated the markets on its efforts to stop the oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion on a BP-operated rig.
Mining giant Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) has joined rivals BHP Billiton and Vale in switching from annual to quarterly pricing reviews for its iron ore sales. Whilst the 2009/2010 annual iron ore contracts were negotiated at US$60 per tonne, demand has recovered so much that the price for the prevailing quarter is likely to fall somewhere between US$110-120 per tonne. If this jump of 80-100% was not enough, should the spot price of iron ore increase later this year, prices will be renegotiated and this will filter through to Rio's bottom line.