UK: Freightliner Heavy Haul (FHH) has renewed its rail haulage agreement with EDF Energy in the UK. The agreement will see an increase in contracted volumes and secures the capacity, service performance and flexible offer that FHH have demonstrated in previous contracts.

"This contract renewal builds upon our long term relationship with FHH and secures the level of service performance and flexibility that we require to meet the future challenges in the ever-changing energy market," said Paul Cooke, fuel operations manager at EDF Energy.

India: The Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) plans to set up small-scale waste-to-energy plant to generate electricity. A Bangalore-based private company, which has been appointed for the project management, will submit a project report in four months. The JMC plans to generate nearly 6MW/day from 650t of waste.

"At present, JMC generates close to 1250t/day of waste," said deputy mayor Manoj Bhardawaj, "Of this 1250t, 350t is used to produce refuse-derived fuel that is sold to cement plants and 250t is used to produce compost manure. We are planning to generate electricity from the remaining 650t."

India: Coal India (CIL) is likely to sign a major joint venture agreement with the India Railways to co-develop a number of railway projects to extract coal. CIL would provide the money, while India Railways would provide the labour force creating the infrastructure, including the tracks, sidings and related infrastructure.

The joint venture plan was conceived by Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu, who has been working hard to raise India Railways' share of coal transport and CIL chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya, who has previous experience of working on similar projects for the Krishnapatnam Rail Co. The deal is expected to be signed shortly. "The terms are being worked out. We will disclose when it is finalised," said Bhattacharya.

CIL has been looking at a comprehensive revenue-based partnership with India Railways in a bid to create mega infrastructure for which about 50 separate projects across the country have already been identified. Of immediate priority would be three specific projects, including a 90km stretch linking Tori-Shivpur-Kathautia connecting the North Karanpura mines in Jharkhand, Jharsuguda-Barpalli-Sardega in Odisha and Bhupdeopur-Raigarh-Mand in Chhattisgarh. CIL is likely to invest US$643m in these three projects.

The joint venture is expected to help CIL double its coal production from the current levels to 1Bnt by 2020.

Egypt: Tourah Cement plans to invest US$39.4m to convert its plant to alternative fuels to recover production ability and profitability. Tourah did not make a profit in 2014.