North Sea oil platforms are facing the first big strike in decades, as hundreds of workers protest against the cost cutting measures that have been introduced in response to reduced oil prices. This week, employees of Wood Group (an oilfield services company, across eight platforms operated by Shell) have planned a 24 hour stoppage. The dispute is being viewed keenly as a test of whether companies will be able to force through further cuts in labour costs in the face of resistance from unions as part of the wider task of keeping oil and gas in the North Sea competitive. Since oil prices fell from more than $100 a barrel two years ago to a 12 year low of $28 in January this year, leaders of unions say that workers have already made significant sacrifices in this period. Since January, prices have rebounded back to about $47 a barrel, although this has not been sufficient to lift the darkness that surrounds the North Sea basins. John Boland, Regional Officer of Unite, which called the strike along with the RMT union, said: “Strike action by our members is not a decision they take lightly but they have been pushed to the limit.” Industry group Oil & Gas UK believed that by the end of 2016, the number of oil and gas jobs in the UK will fall by 8,000 from its 41,700 peak two years ago. Furthermore, when support jobs are included in this figure, it is expected to have fallen to 330,400 from 453,800, which is a loss of more than 120,000. The majority of losses have been suffered in the capital of the UK oil industry, Aberdeen, where the amount of people who claim unemployment benefit has more than doubled in the last two years. Meanwhile, figures also show that the average pay for an offshore worker has decreased to £62,000 from £80,000 in 2014.

Plumbers may be missing out on trade because of a poor online presence, according to UK digital marketing provider Yell. The company has found that a significant majority of plumbers (90%) have inconsistent or incorrect information online, including basic details such as correct email and phone number. Yell analysed the online presence of almost 5,000 plumbers in the UK throughout a number of sites including My Local Services UK, Facebook and Bing, and also asked customers throughout the country about their online expectations and habits. The findings revealed some basic and common errors in the approach of small businesses to reaching potential online customers, for example having different phone numbers listed on different sites. The feedback found that 89% of customers would try contacting a different firm if the details listed online for a particular company are not correct, which suggests that many small firms, including plumbers, are missing out on a considerable amount of potential custom. Some of the key findings from the investigation were that 54% of people rely on positive online reviews when deciding on a new local business or service, while just over half (51%) of customers said when they were looking for a new service, the most important source of information was a website. Marketing Director at Yell, Mark Clisby, said that if a company’s online information is incorrect, then it could be argued that this is worse than not being online at all. He added: “Not only is the company effectively invisible to customers, it can also seem careless or even untrustworthy. “This often happens because companies don’t always know all the listings sites where they appear, or when they move they forget to update their information. It’s easily done, but can be incredibly damaging for business.” Yell has launched Connect to support small businesses, which is a service that recognises the importance of connections and word of mouth referrals and recommendations.

  The committee highlighted failures in the design of household efficiency schemes and claimed that take-up of the Green Deal scheme was “woefully low” because it had not been adequately tested. The forecast was “excessively optimistic” and “gave a completely misleading picture of the scheme’s prospects to parliament and other stakeholders,” it said in a report. Th committee raised concerns about the £25 million of investment for the Green Deal finance company from taxpayers, as the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) had “no formal role” in approving company expenditure. Decc spent a total of £240 million setting up and raising demand for loans under the Green Deal. Is also found that the government lacked information it needed to measure progress and the impact of fuel poverty for the Energy Company Obligation (Eco) scheme. The scheme ran alongside Green Deal and required energy companies to provide households with energy efficiency measures such as loft insulation. It has called on the government to ensure policy decisions are “thoroughly tested and based on accurate evidence”. The department must “be prepared to pull back on plans if it is clear they are unlikely to be successful and risk taxpayers’ money,” it said, adding that the Department “must not leave itself open to accusations of misleading parliament to achieve its own ends”. PAC chair Meg Hillier said: “The government rushed into the Green Deal without proper consideration of concerns about its weaknesses. This blinkered approach resulted in a truly dismal take-up for Green Deal loans and a cost to taxpayers of £17,000 for every loan arranged. Savings in CO2 were minimal.” The Green Deal and Eco schemes were implemented in 2013 to help improve household energy efficiency. The money available to Green Deal will not be renewed once it has run out, and the Eco scheme will enter a transitional year in 2017 before a new one is announced.

Ineos is aiming to accelerate its shale gas development in the UK by lodging up to 30 planning applications to drill test wells over the course of the next six months. The $50 billion petrochemicals firm is controlled by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, and one of its directors, Tom Crotty, said that the company has plans to begin drilling in the north of England early in 2017, while gas extraction could start in 18 months through the controversial fracking process. The plan has been announced at a time when the group is ending a six year tax exile with the opening of a new London headquarters for its upstream oil and gas operations which are based primarily in the UK. Ratcliffe was the UK founder of the company, which he took to Switzerland in 2010 as it was struggling to pay its taxes following the global financial crisis, while he has now also returned to live in the UK. Ineos’ primary concern now is to continue its free trade with the EU, in particular with Norway, where the firm has a significant petrochemical business, which Ratcliffe says “is a model that works for us.” The company has been built up over more than a decade through a number of acquisitions and last year moved into gas production after its $750 million acquisition of 12 North Sea fields from Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman. The group also owns the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland and has ambitions of becoming a major producer of oil and gas, in particular shale gas. Over the last year, Ineos has backed a very public campaign to persuade the Scottish government to remove its moratorium on fracking. However, the campaign was unsuccessful and has resulted in the group bidding for licenses in England and now has rights covering 1m acres, primarily in North Yorkshire, the North Midlands and the Cheshire basin.

In an attempt to boost their business and tap into a new market, Calor is urging rural installers to become qualified LPG tumble dryer installers. Research has recently shown that LPG tumble dryers cost about 25% less to run that standard electric dryers, which makes them a suitable appliance for the two million homes in the UK that are off the main gas grid. In its recommendation of switching from solid fuel, oil and electricity to LPG home heating, Calor says that installers would benefit from the extra work along with this conversion, such as fitting a new LPG tumble dryer and boiler, along with other LPG appliances such as cookers and fires. The laundry is dried by the LPG tumble driers using the gas to hear the air inside the dryers and although they still use a small amount of electricity to power the control panel and turn the drum, this is still less than 10% of the full amount of electricity used by a standard electric dryer. Along with being cheaper to run in the long term, LPG models are also more energy efficient with Calor’s LPG dryers having an ‘A’ energy rating, whereas most common electric dryers have a ‘C’ energy rating. This means that they are more efficient than electric dryers by around 40%. Calor Appliance Manager, Teresa Wafer, commented: “Installers should arm themselves with these statistics about the cost and energy saving benefits of LPG tumble dryers, and inform their off-grid customers about these benefits in order to gain new LPG installation work.” Furthermore, Calor says that gas tumble dryers also help to reduce the static build up in fabrics, which can damage clothes, while the reverse tumble action reduction means that items are less likely to become creased and tangled. Calor LPG dryers can either be fuelled by Calor gas from bottles or a larger storage tank.

British Telecom has been once again been prosecuted for dangerous and disruptive roadwork failings in London. This is the second occasion in three weeks that BT has faced action from Transport for London and the 41st time in total in the last six years. The latest prosecution against BT comes after the work carried out close to Victoria Station on Victoria Station on January 26, 2016. On July 6, the company pleaded guilty to four offences at Westminster Magistrates’ court, which were: failing to serve necessary statutory works notices following completion, failing to serve necessary statutory works notices before commencement, unsafe execution of works and conducting street works without a permit. For these offences, the telecommunications giant was hit with a £3,250 fine and ordered to pay court costs of £1,800. In passing the sentence, the judge explained that this is not a one off breach of regulations; rather the records show that the company has frequently been in breach of them despite TfL issuing a large number of fixed penalty notices. The judge went on to say: “I understand no injuries occurred on this occasion but clearly more needs to be done to avoid these embarrassing prosecutions.” In June, BT was issued with a £4,500 fine along with £3,916 in costs for the dangerous street works on Brixton Road and Clapham Road in South London earlier in the year. Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport at TfL, Garrett Emmerson, said that their priority is to make sure that roadworks are carried out safely in such a busy city, which is why BT has been prosecuted for the second time in three weeks. He added: “BT is a repeat offender – having failed to manage roadworks properly on a number of occasions. We will always push for the strongest possible action in order to ensure London’s streets are safe and free from unnecessary congestion.”

The failing standard of drinking water in many UK homes is being caused by poor plumbing, according to the annual report from the Drinking Water Inspectorate for England and Wales (DWI). The study has shown that almost a third of water that has failed the quality tests has come as a result of below standard fittings and poor plumbing practices in private pipes and properties after it has been transferred from the public water mains. The DWI annual report revealed that odour, taste, nickel and lead are among the problems with the deteriorating quality of drinking water in UK homes, primarily caused by incorrect fittings and materials or a lack of protection from water ‘flowing back’ into the internal pipework from household appliances. Marcus Rink, DWI Chief Inspector, commented: “A skilled and competent plumber using approved materials provides confidence in water remaining wholesome right up to the tap.” The national register for plumbers, WaterSafe, has urged homeowners to only use approved plumbers to make sure that their supply of drinking water remains safe. Julie Spinks, WaterSafe Director, said that UK water supplies are among the best in the world and the group will aim to maintain those standards by making sure that drinking water in homes is of the same standard as when it leaves the water treatment works at the water companies. She added: “The use of a nationally registered plumber such as the WaterSafe scheme goes towards securing safe clean water for all, delivering the high quality of water we have come to expect.” Every year, water samples are taken from customers’ taps, water mains, pumping stations, water treatment works and reservoirs to test for a number of substances which are then measured against the standards outlined by the World Health Organisation. In England and Wales, the overall pass rate for drinking water was 99.96%.

Oil and gas giant Shell is preparing for strike action across seven of its platforms in the North Sea as part of the largest UK oilfields industrial dispute for ten years. Earlier in the week, workers at Wood Group, the company which provides Shell with maintenance services, voted in favour of strike action in protest at the changes to working conditions and pay. The dispute is a reflection of the increasing tensions in North Sea industrial relations as businesses struggle to keep the basin competitive in the face of low oil prices, high costs and declining production. Shell says that it is not expecting disruption to hit immediately and has put contingency plans in place to make sure that essential maintenance would carry on as normal if the strike goes ahead as planned. Shell has been accused of recruiting “scab labour” by trade unions after advertisements were posted to a job agency website which offered maintenance work on week by week contracts. RMT and Unite union leaders said that their members had voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action. Head of Shell’s upstream business in the UK and Ireland, Paul Goodfellow, said that he was disappointed with the outcome of the vote and was hopeful that the Wood Group and its employees would be able to resolves their issues without the need for a walkout. Goodfellow commented: “Our priority is to ensure that the safety of our people and assets will not be compromised during any industrial action.” Meanwhile, Head of Wood Group’s Eastern Region, Dave Stewart, said that the company was hopeful of reaching an agreement with the unions that “meets our mutual goal of safeguarding these jobs in the North Sea now and in the future.” On average, Wood Group employees are facing a basic salary reduction of 3%.

The UK’s roads watchdog has warned Highways England that it must change its planning processes if it is to be successful in delivering its £15 billion Road Investment Strategy. If the agency is to meet its delivery targets for the rest of the programme, the Office of Road and Rail said that the agency would require a more “robust internal planning process.” The comments came in the ORR’s first yearly review of the performance of Highways England which stated that the agency has made a “good start” to RIS by spending in line with the agreed funding and meeting all of its performance targets. However, there were concerns raised over the ability of Highways England to deal with “future risks” including skills shortages as workloads increased. In 2015/16, Highways England spent just more than £1.7 billion on renewals and enhancements, which will rise to £2.2 billion the following year and £3 billion in 2020. Joanna Whittington, Chief Executive of ORR, warned that most of its delivery targets had been set for the latter stages of its five year funding period and the agency required “more work to do to demonstrate how it will ensure delivery of its capital investment plan.” Whittington added: “The company needs to be clear about how it will manage some specific risks, such as those associated with the availability of skilled workforce and capacity of the supply chain to deliver.” The report also stated that the sector’s “strongest capacity constraint” was its ability to attract people with the appropriate skill set. Earlier in the week it was revealed that Highways England was to replace the current Collaborative Delivery Framework with a £7 billion framework. As part of its plans, Jim O’Sullivan, Chief Executive, outlined plans for a “route to market” initiative that would consult suppliers on how the framework should be shaped moving forward.