NEWS | IN BRIEF
London Array in £2bn cash boost
Germany’s E.ON, Denmark’s state-owned group DONG Energy and Masdar said yesterday they had signed contracts worth nearly €2bn (£1.3bn) for work on London Array’s offshore wind project. Masdar is an Abu Dhabi green energy investment firm. The companies said work for first phase of the project would start early in 2011 and complete by the end of 2012. The project for the 1,000 megawatt wind farm in the Thames Estuary near London had been threatened by falling power prices, the weakening pound and rising costs for credit.
Tube works face delay, says union
London underground could be hit by massive delays after a private maintenance contract fell into “chaos,” the RMT union said yesterday. The union called for Tube Lines, the private company that maintains the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, to be stripped of its contract, after long delays to work on the Jubilee line were announced.
EU ends long-running banana war
The European Union (EU) reached agreement yesterday on putting an end to a decades-long trade dispute with Latin American and other smaller producers over tariffs on banana imports. The deal resolves the world’s longest-running trade dispute, which involves banana exporters in Latin America and other regions challenging the EU’s preferential treatment of producers in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific region. Bananas will now be cheaper for consumers.