A high-performance culture is the heartbeat of any successful organisation however managing business performance levels effectively can be challenging. As the business adage goes: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” and this has never been truer – especially when it comes to the performance of field service organisations. A field service operation is extremely dynamic and often unpredictable. Each day, managers are faced with complex issues which require fast action.

Last year we published an in-depth report on the Caribbean's leading O&G company, looking at Petrotrin's business models, vision, people strategy and environmental aspirations. There can be no doubt that this is a company that is pivotal to the development of the nation and indeed the region as a whole.

Google engineers have updated the company's technical infrastructure to begin implementing the removals, and put in place a dedicated removals team to evaluate each request. So far, however, only a small number requests has been processed. E-mails are being sent to those people who asked for information to be taken down, informing them that the action has been completed.

Alexander Comley has signed a partnership agreement with Hydra Offshore, an indigenous oilfield services company, in developing products for Ghana’s oil sector.

Under the agreement Alexander Comley will partner Hydra Offshore in the supply of customised flanges, pipe, tube, fittings, plate, machined / turned parts and associated pipeline supplies.

In addition, Hydra Offshore will also lead in the introduction and promotion of Alexander Comley’s products and services in the oil and gas industry within Ghana.

An agreement by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) with South Africa's biggest platinum mining companies, has brought to an end the nation's longest-running strike.

While the deal with the US corporation is dependent of approval from the regulators and representatives of Alstom's workforce, France's government has backed it, securing a 20 percent stake in Alstom, and taking other measures to protect French interests. A rival offer from Siemens-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was rejected. If it is approved, the deal, said to be the largest industrial acquisition that GE has ever made, is expected to be completed in 2015.

It puts the current gold market into perspective when one looks back just a couple of years. In 2012 when we last looked at Alacer Gold's Çöpler gold mine gold prices stood at just over $1,000 an ounce. Since then they have risen of course to as high as $1,800 in mid-2011 before setting out on a steady decline.

When we last featured Basil Read within this magazine in October 2012, much of our focus was on the group’s ongoing work on the St Helena airport project. Said article went into great depth regarding the efforts of the group to deliver the British Overseas Territory with its own international airport, and it soon became clear, to this writer at least, that this project would not only go on to be hugely significant for St Helena but for a group that was already able to boast an impressive track record.

The first meeting to discuss modernisation of the mechanism that sets the price of gold will be held in London on July the 7th. The Financial Conduct Authority will be attending as an observer and representatives of the bullion banks, refiners, ETF and other gold investment product sponsors, exchanges, industry bodies, central banks and mining companies will be individually invited to participate.