The Wellcome Trust, Britain’s largest charitable foundation, is launching its first bond to raise money to invest in scientific research ranging from the human genome to bird flu and malaria. The trust is following the lead of US organisations to become the first UK charity to sell a public bond, it said yesterday.
It hopes to raise £300m to £500m when it issues the 30-year bond next week. It had previously reserved only $700m for compensation and fines.The company promised an update later this month on the repair work at its Thunder Horse rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which was damaged during last year’s hurricane season.BP made no mention yesterday of the criminal investigation into its propane trading. It is accused of trying to corner the market by hoarding reserves and driving the price higher. BP suspended three traders on Friday, having fired two from the Houston-based team some time ago..

In the three months to the end of June, production fell 2.5 per cent to 4.01 million barrels per day, the fourth quarter in a row that it has fallen.BP also said it would set aside an extra $500m to cover legal bills over the Texas refinery blast that killed 15 people last year. Some companies have refused to agree to new terms and given up their interests in the country, but BP said it needed to remain in countries with significant oil reserves.Venezuela accounts for less than 2 per cent of BP’s output, but changes to the first three of its contracts there were enough to push its group production total below most forecasts. It is believed that BP was forced to give up about two-thirds of the oil the fields were producing, handing it instead to the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).Now a fourth, even more lucrative, contract is also under renegotiation. The field, Cerro Negro, is 83 per cent-owned by Exxon Mobil and PDVSA, but BP still gets an estimated 35,000 barrels per day for its 17 per cent interest, making it its largest single interest in Venezuela.The Chavez government has been among the most aggressive in pursuing big oil companies for a greater share of the revenues from surging oil prices.

BP – the UK’s largest oil company – said yesterday that it produced less oil in the past three months than many analysts had predicted, leading some to suggest it could miss its production targets for the year.
The company blamed a more aggressive attitude by the Chavez government, which forced the renegotiation of contracts on three of BP’s oil fields in Venezuela. “We look to Ofwat to act quickly in the future should Thames slip in its progress towards delivering the agreed improvements.”. Venezuela’s left-wing government is demanding that BP give up an even greater proportion of the oil produced at its fields in the country, as president Hugo Chavez tries to claw back more of the country’s oil wealth from multi-national companies. “We will keep a very close watch on the company’s progress as they deliver on today’s legally binding agreement.

“Thames has been in danger of eroding the consumer confidence and goodwill that it will need from consumers when asking them to save water this summer. “We hope that Ofwat’s action will now concentrate their minds on delivering secure supplies of water and value for money to customers. “However, this is better returned in the lasting form of improved services, rather than a financial penalty on the company which would simply swell the Treasury’s coffers without directly benefiting consumers.” She added that Thames’s performance on leakage had worsened the current water shortages and while consumers were being asked to reduce their use of water, the company must fulfil “its half of the bargain”. The Consumer Council for Water welcomed the Ofwat decision to demand improved services rather than a “punitive fine”.

It asked the company to deliver “rapid and recognisable” improvements or a rebate to customers who faced an average 20% bill increase last year, which the council said customers were told would pay for reducing leakage. Dame Yve Buckland, chair of the council, said: “Thames took consumers’ money without delivering on their promises. “It is only right that they should give back what they owe to their customers, and this is what we have been pushing for. This is why we undertook 20% more work putting new pipes in the ground in 2005-06 than was originally planned.” Parent company RWE is currently trying to sell Thames Water. “Despite meeting our leakage target outside London, leakage in the capital remains unacceptably high and we acknowledge that more work needs to be done to continue to reduce it. “The most effective and sustainable way to bring leakage down in London is to replace the Victorian mains network.