Andrew Callus News

French oil services company Bourbon said on Thursday that any rebound in oil and gas prices will take a while to reach companies in the offshore marine sector because of deep cuts in investments during the prolonged oil downturn. Bourbon, whose fleet of about 513 vessels provides offshore services for oil and gas companies, said its net loss in the first half widened to 104.3 million euros ($117 million) compared with a net loss of 19.2 million in the same period a year ago. Adjusted revenues fell 21 percent to 599.2 million compared with the first half of 2015, the company said.

Two potential buyers have emerged for STX France, a shipyard subsidiary of the struggling South Korean group STX Corp, according to a French finance ministry source. The French state holds a 33 percent minority stake in STX France, which runs a naval shipyards in Saint Nazaire on the west coast. Lossmaking STX Corp is in administration. A French finance ministry source said a South Korean court was poised to clear a decision to liquidiate STX Corp's assets on Friday this week, a move that could clear the way for the sale of its assets.

French wheat exports to Indonesia are on hold as traders await the approval of a food safety agreement between the two countries, something exporters say is being delayed by Indonesia in retaliation against a French palm oil tax plan. A farm ministry official from Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil, said the delay was a procedural one, and denied any link to the proposed tax. France's additional tax on palm oil, due to come into force next year, is billed as an environmental levy on a product associated with deforestation and other environmental damage. The delay to exports from the European Union's largest grain exporter was on the agenda of France's Secretary of State for Trade Matthias Fekl when he travelled to Indonesia earlier this month.

French-based CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container shipping firm, said on Monday it expects its volume growth to outperform the market again in 2016 after strong expansion last year helped it cushion a slide in freight rates. CMA CGM, which is in the process of acquiring Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) for $2.4 billion in its biggest-ever deal, has been pursuing economies of scale to ride out a shipping downturn linked to vessel oversupply and faltering economic growth.

France has launched a tender for several floating offshore wind turbine projects in what is set to be the first attempt to test this new technology on an industrial scale. French environment agency ADEME on Wednesday posted a tender document inviting companies to submit proposals to build floating wind farms with between three to six turbines each, with a capacity of at least 5 megawatts per turbine in three sites in the Mediterranean and one site off southern Brittany. Portugal and Norway have pioneered the new technology in the past few years with a single floating turbine each, and Portugal plans to build a 25 MW floating wind demonstration farm, but the French project will be the first to test floating offshore wind on a large scale.

DFDS Seaways Calais-Dover ferry service, suspended by a workers' blockade of Calais port during the weekend, will resume on Tuesday morning, Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said after talks with the parties involved. Ferry workers, industry executives, the Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel and the French government are due to reconvene later this week for further talks to settle the labour dispute after breaking up without agreement on Monday, Vidalies said in a statement.

A heritage committee of the UNESCO cultural agency stopped short of placing Australia's Great Barrier Reef on an "in danger" list, but the ruling on Friday raised long-term concerns about its future. The long-awaited ruling by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee welcomed Australian efforts to maintain the environmentally sensitive region but noted its outlook was "poor" and called on the government to stick rigidly to commitments to protect it. "Climate change, poor water quality and impacts from coastal development are major threats to the property's health...," the statement said after delegates held discussions in the German city in Bonn. Busy shipping lanes pass through the area and commercial ships are required to hire a special "reef pilot" to navigate through it.

Towns on France's North Atlantic coast braced for their first giant tide of the millennium on Saturday as the full moon and this week's solar eclipse combined to create an ocean surge not seen since 1997. At the picturesque Mont Saint Michel island where some of the biggest tides in the world occur, visitors gathered to watch the tide disappear out of sight, exposing areas of beach and rock visible only every 18 years. The next peak tide is not due until 2033. France's National Hydrographic Service was expecting to measure more than 14 metres (15.3 yards) between low and high water around the famous Abbey-topped rock off France's north-west coast. Average tides in the area measure 8.7 metres.

Team Niinivirta, a Finnish family-run transportation firm, turned 60 this year, but its third-generation managers now don't know if the business will see Christmas, because of Russia's new ban on European food imports. The firm based in Kotka, on the Gulf of Finland opposite Saint Petersburg, was using its 12 refrigerated trucks to ship 80 loads a month of Finnish milk products to Russia. But the ban on imports of dairy products, fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish from Europe has brought work for Niinivirta and similar specialist local truckers to a near standstill.

The board of Alstom accepted General Electric's 10 billion euro ($13.82 billion) bid for its energy unit on Tuesday, several sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Sources said GE is not in exclusive talks with Alstom. The French transport-to-turbines group is also set to receive an offer from its much larger German competitor Siemens AG , which said it had sent a letter to Alstom after its managing and supervisory boards had decided to make an offer. Alstom is expected to make a statement about the two offers early on Wednesday, before its shares, suspended since late last week, resume trading. The rival bids have triggered a fierce national debate about the fate of power turbine and train manufacturing in France - both integral to the country's engineering pedigree.

President Francois Hollande and his Economy MinisterArnaud Montebourg will meet General Electric chief executive Jeff Immelt on Monday to discuss the future of French engineering group Alstom, a presidential official told Reuters. The meeting follows news last week that GE is planning a $13 billion deal to buy Alstom's power turbines business, and comes after the intervention on Sunday of the French government and industry rival Siemens of Germany. Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Siemens and the French government intervened in General Electric's plan to buy the power arm of Alstom on Sunday with an alternative European "champions" tie-up proposal and a pledge to act inFrance's national interest. Though French trains-to-turbines maker Alstom is privately owned, firebrand Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg issued a stark reminder of the influence the government holds over a company that relies heavily on orders from state rail operator SNCF and partly state-owned utility EDF. "GE and Alstom have their calendar, which is that of shareholders, but the French government has its own, which is that of economic sovereignty," Montebourg said in a statement, providing the first official confirmation of GE's offer.

French engineering firm Alstom said on Sunday it would continue to reflect on its future until Wednesday and that it had requested trading in its shares remain suspended until then. The statement from the company follows news of an offer from U.S. giant General Electric to buy its power arm, and of a potential alternative proposal from German group Siemens . The French government also intervened on Sunday to express concerns about jobs and other issues of national interest. The turbine and train maker's statement did not mention any of these issues, saying only that "Alstom continues and deepens its strategic reflection and will make a further announcement no later than Wednesday 30 April morning. Alstom's shares were suspended from trading on Friday at the request of market regulator AMF.

French President Francois Hollande gathered ministers on Sunday evening to discuss the case of struggling engineering firm Alstom, with jobs, location of activities and energetic independence in mind, his office said in a statement. The French government and Germany's Siemens intervened in U.S. giant General Electric's plan to buy Alstom's power arm earlier on Sunday by offering an alternative tie-up between European "champions" and a pledge to act in France's national interest. A spokesman for the president's office said the ministers' meeting was now over and that it planned to release another statement on the subject by Monday morning. (Reporting by Natalie Huet; Editing by Andrew Callus)

Alstom's arch rival Siemens wants talks with the struggling French engineering group, the German company said on Sunday, the day General Electric boss Jeff Immelt is due in Paris to thrash out a deal to buy Alstom's global power arm. Siemens said in a statement that it had written a letter to "signal its willingness to discuss future strategic opportunities" with the French group. France's government has said it wants to find alternatives to the GE offer, which sources say puts a value of $13 billion on the turbines and power grid equipment business and could be announced in days. Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg said last week that he plans a meeting with Immelt.

France's Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg confirmed for the first time on Sunday that both General Electric and Siemens were interested in engineering group Alstom and said he would not allow any hasty decisions. In a statement, he said he first learned of GE's interest on Thursday and then of Siemens' proposal earlier on Sunday. He said the government was ready to look at both proposals but "will not accept that a decision is taken, whatever it might be, in haste" and without knowledge of what was in the national interest and what alternatives there might be. Earlier, a spokeswoman said Montebourg was no longer expecting to meet GE chief executive Jeff Immelt on Sunday as government sources reported on Saturday. She said the meeting had been postponed "for a few days".

U.S. industrial conglomerate General Electric Co is in advanced talks to buy the global power division of struggling French engineering group Alstom SA for about $13 billion, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. Sources said a deal was backed by Alstom's main shareholder, French conglomerate Bouygues with 29 percent, and could be announced in the coming days after an Alstom board meeting on Friday afternoon. The board was due to meet again on Sunday to discuss the transaction, French daily Le Figaro said. "Talks are going ahead swiftly, the deal's structure is defined and everything is almost ready," one of the sources said. Alstom Chief Executive Patrick Kron confirmed to union representatives there were talks about an "industrial deal," but did not name GE.

Three European companies have won contracts for almost half the value of Angola's $16 billion ultra-deepwater Kaombo oil project, confirming a trend toward bigger scale and risk for the deep-sea contracting and construction sector. Saipem of Italy announced a $4 billion contract related to fitting out and supplying two converted oil tankers to become the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) part of the project. Meanwhile, Paris-listed Technip and crane-ship specialist Heerema revealed a $3.5 billion deal for subsea tubes, pipes and cables to connect the two FPSOs to the seabed two kilometres below the surface. Heerema said the contract was the biggest on record of its kind.

Millers and wheat importers in Morocco have asked the government to establish a longer annual window for imports after scrambling to secure shipments this season, trade sources said. Morocco, like other North African countries, depends on imports of staple cereals. It is expected to buy around 2.5 million tonnes of foreign wheat in the 2013/14 marketing year. The country's import campaign typically runs from October to May when the local harvest starts. But this season, shipments did not get under way until January, condensing the shipment period and leading to a glut of cargoes at Moroccan ports. To give greater visibility, Moroccan wheat trade federation FIAC and flour millers group FNM have proposed to the authorities that the import campaign start in September, trade sources said.