Acwa acquires Polish turbine business
Acwa Field Services, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, has acquired the steam turbine services entity of EthosEnergy in Wroclaw, Poland.
The transaction transfers EthosEnergy’s steam turbine field services, its 85 employees, specialist assets, established contracts, intellectual property and contracted service backlog, to Acwa Field Services, which will operate the business as Acwa Field Services Poland.
The acquisition marks Acwa Field Services’ first move into the EU, and the opening step in a deliberate growth strategy.
bp to develop 4Tcf Loran gas field
bp and Venezuela have signed agreements to advance offshore gas development, including an exploration and production licence for Phase 2 of the Loran field in the Plataforma Deltana area, which holds an estimated 4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas resources.
bp will operate alongside XRG, Adnoc’s international energy investment company, and UCC Oil and Gas Holding, with each partner holding an equal working interest.
The companies also signed a memorandum of understanding covering the Carupano East Block in the Caracolito sub-basin of the Mariscal Sucre maritime area.
Clariant’s recognised for digital Innovation
Clariant’s digital catalyst monitoring platform, CLARITY, and its AI-powered evolution, CLARITY Prime, have won “Best Digital Innovation” at the ICIS Innovation Awards 2026.
CLARITY is a cloud-based digital catalyst monitoring platform provided free of charge to all Clariant catalyst customers.
Meanwhile, CLARITY Prime is the paid AI-powered evolution of CLARITY that combines machine learning and can increase production by up to 10 per cent.
Greenland as new helium source
Greenland is emerging as a potential source of primary helium for Europe.
Pulsar Helium’s wholly-owned Tunu Project in East Greenland has identified naturally occurring helium.
Helium is essential to semiconductor manufacturing, medical imaging, aerospace and scientific applications, while high-purity helium and helium-3 are also gaining importance in quantum technologies.
Surface sampling at Tunu has identified helium concentrations of up to 0.8 per cent, with the gas not associated with hydrocarbons.
Hitachi Energy invests $300m in China
Hitachi Energy will invest $300 million in China to strengthen its global manufacturing footprint and address rapidly growing demand for transformers.
The investment will expand the company’s power transformer and component manufacturing capacity in Hefei, Anhui Province, strengthening the resilience of the global transformer value chain and helping ease supply constraints.
It forms part of the company’s $9 billion global investment plan to expand manufacturing capacity, engineering, R&D, and partnerships as global demand for energy solutions rises.
Canada top US uranium supplier
Canada (32 per cent), closely followed by Kazakhstan (28 per cent), remained the largest source of uranium delivered to utilities in the US and Europe in 2025, WNN reported.
US civilian nuclear power reactors purchased 21.23 million kg of U3O8e (18,040 tU) of deliveries from US and foreign suppliers during 2025, 16 per cent less than purchased in 2024.
Although Russian-origin material accounted for 1.04 million kg of U3O8 of 2024 deliveries, data on any deliveries of Russian-origin material in 2025 has been withheld to avoid disclosure of individual company data. Several other countries are also marked as “withheld” in the publication.
Indonesia to add 30 GW of solar power
Indonesia will build 30 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity and phase out 13 GW of diesel-fired power plants in 2026 as part of efforts to strengthen national energy self-reliance, President Prabowo Subianto said.
The government plans to gradually expand solar power capacity to 100 GW, which could reduce electricity generation costs by up to $4.5 billion annually.
Equinor signs 15-year German gas deal
Equinor and Uniper have signed a 15-year agreement under which Equinor will supply more than 30 terawatt-hours (TWh), or about 2.8 billion cu m, of natural gas annually to Germany.
The deal runs from January 1, 2027, through December 31, 2041, with deliveries made at Trading Hub Europe, Germany’s gas market area.
Germany is Equinor’s largest natural gas market and has been a key destination for Norwegian gas since exports began in 1977.
Hitachi Energy invests $300m in China
Hitachi Energy will invest $300 million in China to strengthen its global manufacturing footprint and address rapidly growing demand for transformers.
The investment will expand the company’s power transformer and component manufacturing capacity in Hefei, Anhui Province, strengthening the resilience of the global transformer value chain and helping ease supply constraints.
It forms part of the company’s US$9 billion global investment plan, the largest in the industry, to expand manufacturing capacity, engineering, R&D, and partnerships as global demand for energy solutions continues to accelerate.
AL, ML boost predictive maintenance
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are becoming foundational to predictive maintenance (PdM) across the power industry, enabling utilities to learn the normal operating behavior of critical grid assets and identify early indicators of deterioration.
By continuously analysing operational and sensor data, these technologies surface anomalies and emerging failure modes before they escalate, supporting timely and targeted interventions.
Power companies, such as Orsted, Florida Power & Light, and National Grid are enhancing PdM with AI/ML by combining high-frequency sensor data, inspection imagery, and operational history to detect anomalies early and predict failure probability.