BHP Billiton has completed its acquisition of the HWE Mining subsidiaries which provide contract mining services to its Western Australia Iron Ore operations.

The acquisition from Leighton Holdings follows a previously announced Heads of Agreement signed on 9 August 2011, relating to the mining equipment and related assets that service the Area C, Yandi and Orebody 23/25 operations which collectively account for almost 70 per cent of Western Australia Iron Ore’s total material movement.

North Atlantic Potash Inc., the Canadian subsidiary of JSC Acron, today completed the sale of eight of its potash permitted areas to Yancoal Canada Resources Co. Ltd. of China for CAD$110 million.

This sale relates to North Atlantic Potash's potash permit holdings located north of Regina, and allows the company to focus on key areas of interest within its remaining potash permits in Saskatchewan.

Westinghouse Electric Company has been awarded a contract for the supply of 12 replacement steam generators for EDF's French nuclear fleet.

Westinghouse will provide engineering design, analysis, and fabrication for its technologically advanced steam generator and will deliver the steam generators to EDF in collaboration with several industrial partners, including Valinox Nucleaire in France for the manufacture of steam generator tubes, Mangiarotti S.p.A. in Italy for the steam generator assembly, and other European forging companies.

The Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port, opened a new deep water shipping terminal today.

The new terminal consists of two berths – Berths 8 & 9 – and is the first stage of a £1 billion plus inward investment programme in Hutchison’s UK ports.

Currently the Port of Felixstowe deals with over 40 per cent of the UK’s container cargo, with around £60 billion of imports and exports passing through the port each year. The expansion could add a further £20 billion to this figure.

US battery manufacturer EnerSys announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to launch a joint venture in Germany to produce large format lithium-ion battery cells.

EnerSys will have a majority interest in the joint venture in cooperation with GAIA Akkumulatorenwerke GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Technology Corporation (LTC).

US-based high-tech component manufacturer Atmel is to acquire ADD Semiconductor, a privately held company based in Zaragoza, Spain that develops power line communication solutions.

Atmel Corporation is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, non-volatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components.

DHL Global Forwarding has established three new direct connections between Germany and the African continent.

Transit times for less than container load (LCL) shipments on the three new lanes between Bremen and Tema (Ghana), Cape Town (South Africa) and Mombasa (Kenya) will be shortened by five to six days.

Tronox Incorporated and Exxaro Resources Limited today announced a definitive agreement under which Tronox will acquire Exxaro's mineral sands operations in exchange for a 38.5 per cent equity stake in Tronox.

Exxaro is a South African-based resources group with a variety of interests, including iron ore and coal. Its mineral sands operations produce the key titanium bearing ore feedstock used in the production of titanium dioxide pigment - an inorganic white pigment used in paint, coatings, plastics, paper and many other everyday products.

Chevron Energy Solutions and the Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) Albany are today celebrating completion of the Department of the Navy's first landfill gas cogeneration plant.

The southwest Georgia plant produces 1.9 megawatts of renewable electric power and steam by burning landfill gas collected from a nearby landfill. Chevron Energy Solutions also completed industrial lighting retrofits in 82 buildings and expanded the existing energy management control system.