Australia and NZ

Australian bottling company Coca-Cola Amatil has agreed to lend around $46 million to the Australian Beer Company, it has been announced.

The company said the loan is a preparatory step towards its re-entry into the Australian premium beer market and will be used by the Australian Beer Company (part of the Casella Group) to assist with the acquisition and expansion of a state-of-the-art brewery in Griffith, New South Wales, into a 500,000 hectolitre annual capacity brewery. 

Bluescope and Nippon Steel have formed a $1.4 billion joint venture encompassing BlueScope’s ASEAN and North American building products business.

Australia’s Origin Energy has announced the commencement of drilling at the Mbawa prospect offshore Kenya.

Drilling at the prospect is expected to take about 60 days, which will reach a total depth of 3,250 metres subsea in water depths of 864 metres.

The Mbawa joint venture consists of operator Apache Kenya, which holds a 50 per cent interest; Origin Energy, with 20 per cent; Pancontinental Oil and Gas, with 15 per cent; and Tullow Kenya, which holds 15 per cent.

The drilling is being carried out by Apache on behalf of the joint venture.

Australia’s Bannerman Resources has announced an update on its discussions with Namibian state-owned mining company Epangelo Mining Company.

Bannerman and Epangelo signed a non-binding agreement, or term sheet, in April this year setting out the terms and conditions offered to Epangelo for it to acquire an initial five per cent interest (plus a follow-on option for  an additional five per cent) in Bannerman's 80 per cent-owned Namibian subsidiary, the sole owner of the Etango Uranium Project. 

Australian airline Qantas has confirmed it is in discussions with a number of other airlines about potential alliances.

Shares in the national carrier have soared after it confirmed the rumours, adding that one of the airlines it is engaged in talks with is Dubai-based Emirates.

Founded in 2005 in Canada by a group of experienced drilling rig experts, Saxon Energy Services is now majority owned by oilfield services specialist Schlumberger and the largest private equity provider in the business, First Reserve.

Canadian mining company Mandalay Resources applies the principles of continuous improvement to everything it does. Creating cost-effective and stable operating conditions has enabled the company to reinvest revenue into exploration and develop a long-term pipeline of projects.

Australia’s underground mining industry is a challenging arena to work in, yet for mining and tunnelling services provider Jennmar Australia, it is these challenges that have brought about its success.

Terra Nova Minerals Inc. has signed an agreement with Geokinetics (Australia) Pty. Ltd. of Brisbane, for a 127 square kilometre 3D seismic survey.

Geokinetics will undertake the survey on the northern boundary of Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) 112 on the western flank of the Cooper Eromanga Basin in South Australia.

The survey is expected to commence in early August 2012 and will include the shooting and processing of the 3D data acquired. Crews are currently in the field completing line clearing and survey work.