Turkey on Friday called on major international oil and gas companies seeking a license to search for gas deposits off of Cyprus to withdraw their bids, saying it will not allow exploration to go ahead and threatening to ban them from Turkish energy projects.

Israeli firms such as Delek Israel and Avner Oil and Gas as well as Russia’s Novatec, Italy’s ENI, France’s Total and Malaysia’s Petronas are among 15 firms and consortiums seeking a license to carry out exploratory drilling off southern Cyprus despite Turkey’s strong objections. Cyprus has been divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south since a 1974 Turkish invasion that followed a coup by supporters of unity with Greece.

Turkey says the offshore gas search by the Greek Cypriot government flouts the rights of the Turkish Cypriots and last month began exploratory drilling of its own. Last year, it sent a warship-escorted research vessel south of Cyprus, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that his government would “retaliate even more strongly” to any further search for mineral deposits around the island.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Friday that some of the fields in question “conflict” with Turkey’s continental shelf while others overlap with areas Turkey and Turkish Cypriots plan to explore.

“As announced in the past, Turkey will not allow any activity in these fields,” the statement said, without elaborating. “We call on the countries concerned and the oil companies to act with common sense, not to engage in activities in maritime fields that under dispute due to the Cyprus issue and to withdraw from the bidding.”

It said the companies would be held responsible for any tensions that arise from exploration in fields under dispute and would be barred from Turkish energy contracts.

“It will be out of the question for companies that cooperate with (southern Cyprus) to be included into energy projects in the future,” the ministry said.

BP’s has awarded a £75 million contract to DHL Supply Chain  to manage its the warehousing and distribution of goods for its UK convenience retail business until 2018.

The contract builds on DHL’s eight-year track record for implementing efficiency improvements for BP UK Convenience Retail, aiming to achieve even greater levels of cost and carbon savings for both organisations.

As part of the contract, DHL provides warehousing, storage and transportation services to BP’s 350 company-owned forecourts across the UK, handling 19 million cases per year of 1,400 product lines including ambient, bread, sandwiches and high-value lines. DHL also operates a customer service function, providing frontline support on order and delivery queries for BP’s company-owned stores, in addition to purchasing and inventory planning.

In 2008, DHL and BP’s Target Neutral team embarked on a carbon neutral initiative to improve its commitment to the environment. DHL has since worked alongside BP to trial a number of initiatives that have reduced carbon emissions including waste recycling, backhauling and vehicle sharing. One such initiative, where DHL has enhanced its transportation of BP goods to Scottish forecourts, has provided BP with significant cost savings while reducing stem mileage by 12% year on year, reducing carbon by 14%.

Additionally, procedures such as measuring white and red fuel usage of its vehicles and the installation of energy efficient sensory lighting in warehouses will further support BP’s sustainability objectives.

Dean Wyatt, vice president of Business Development Retail for DHL Supply Chain, UK, commented: “Working with BP over the years has required us to adapt our solutions to suit their expanding operations. As BP’s long-standing logistics partner, we are delighted to announce this partnership renewal and are committed to continually improving our service offering to deliver consistently high levels of service.”

Rebecca Harrison, supply chain manager, BP Trading, commented: “We’ve achieved some really impressive cost savings and carbon efficiencies through DHL’s strategic supply chain enhancements – which also mean that we have reduced our environmental footprint. DHL has delivered consistently high levels of service through delivery accuracy, stock availability and on-time delivery to BP forecourts so we look forward to seeing what new efficiencies this extension of the relationship will bring.”

Investors are bracing for Facebook’s  Wall Street debut on Friday after the world’s No.1 online social network raised about $16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history.

Valued at $104 billion, Facebook is larger than Starbucks Corp and Hewlett-Packard combined, sparking intense speculation on how much higher its valuation will rise once shares start trading.

“A 15 to 20 percent pop is in the realm of possibility,” said Tim Loughran, a finance professor at the University of Notre Dame. “Given they already moved their IPO range up and increased the size, that’s bullish to begin with.”

Facebook priced its offering at $38 a share on Thursday, but the price could be higher when shares begin trading under the FB symbol on the Nasdaq at around 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Some expect shares could rise 30 percent or more on Friday, despite ongoing concerns about Facebook’s long-term money-making potential. An average of Morningstar analyst estimates puts the closing price for Facebook shares tomorrow at $50.

The IPO, expected to mint more than a thousand paper millionaires at the company, has received wall-to-wall media coverage and sparked hopes of a boom in sales of everything from San Francisco Bay Area real estate to automobiles.

Facebook employees marked the event with an all-night “hackathon” at the company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters starting on Thursday evening, a tradition in which programmers work on side projects that sometimes turn into mainstream offerings.

Facebook’s 28-year-old founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was expected to ring a bell at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters on Friday morning to kick off trading on the Nasdaq.

Founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, Facebook has grown into the world’s dominant social network with 900 million users.

At $38 a share, Facebook would trade at over 100 times historical earnings versus Apple Inc’s  14 times and Google Inc’s 19 times.

For all the high expectations surrounding Facebook, the company faces challenges maintaining its growth momentum.

Some investors worry the company has not yet figured out a way to make money from the growing number of users who access Facebook on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Meanwhile, revenue growth from Facebook’s online advertising business, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue, has slowed in recent months.

“With mobile usage growth exceeding desktop, monetization in the near term could be reduced given little-to-no ad coverage on mobile, challenged by limited screen sizes,” said a report last week from Susquehanna Financial Group.

GM said on Tuesday it would stop placing ads on Facebook, raising questions about whether display ads on the site are as effective as traditional media.

A Shell subsidiary in Nigeria announced it started repairs on a crude oil pipeline in the country following an early May closure and force majeure declaration.

Shell declared force majeure on Bonny Light crude, the Nigerian blend, as of May 4.

“The action is due to production deferment caused by incessant crude theft and illegal bunkering on Nembe Creek Trunkline,” the company said in a statement.

The shutdown means 60,000 barrels of oil per day is deferred while repairs take place.

Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria disconnected two sections of the pipeline that is said were the target of oil thieves.

Tony Attah, vice president of health and the environmental for Shell in Africa, said engineers were working on eight other sections considered pilfering points.

“This is a difficult work requiring careful planning and digging up several sections of the line in swamp and land, investigating illegal bunkering points and deciding whether to clamp them or do sectional replacement,” he was quoted by Nigerian newspaper This Day as saying.

Shell is accused of causing massive environmental damage in parts of Nigeria. The U.N. Environment Program last year said it would likely take 30 years to clean up oil spilled in the region. Shell is accused of underestimating the volume of oil spilled, though it blames most of the spills on oil bandits.

ABB recently won an order worth $18 million from Daewoo to supply energy efficient propulsion and electrical power systems for two new deep sea pipeline installation vessels that will build oil transport infrastructure off the coast of Brazil. The order was booked in the first quarter.

South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) will build the vessels. The end customer, a joint venture between French oil service company Technip  and Brazilian company Odebrecht Oil & Gas, will use the vessels to connect subsea wells with floating installations in depths of up to 2500 meters along the coast of Brazil for oil company Petrobras.

Wärtsila Ship Design developed the new VS 4146 PLV design with a solid tension capacity of 550 metric tons, and designed for optimal fuel consumption and flexible pipe laying operations.  ABB’s delivery will help the vessels use less fuel while operating at the highest levels of efficiency.

ABB will supply drives, motors and generators, medium voltage switchgear, transformers and softstarters that will provide energy efficient propulsion and a reliable power distribution system on board.  In addition, ABB will take full project responsibility and do complete engineering for its own scope of supply. The diesel electric propulsion system will significantly reduce fuel consumption compared to traditional diesel mechanical systems. The heart of the propulsion system is ABB’s propulsion drives, which are designed for optimized control of the propulsion motors, contributing to reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions.

“ABB’s oil and gas industry expertise, proven marine solutions and subsea experience address the needs of the growing subsea installation service market,” said Veli-Matti Reinikkala, head of ABB’s Process Automation division. “Our environmentally friendly, energy efficient solutions and solid power infrastructure systems help both oil companies and their suppliers ensure the reliable and efficient operation of their vessels from their very first day in service.”

The two identical vessels will be delivered in 2014.

Enbridge Inc kicked off one of the most sweeping expansions in its history on Wednesday, a C$3.2 billion ($3.2 billion)series of projects across its pipeline system aimed at moving western Canadian crude to Eastern refineries and preventing bottlenecks in the U.S. Midwest.

Enbridge, already the largest transporter of Canadian oil exports, said C$2.6 billion worth of the plan would support the reversal in flow direction of a pipeline between Sarnia, Ontario, and Montreal to move crude from the Alberta oil sands and North Dakota’s Bakken Region beyond southern Ontario.

The massive initiative would include additions of capacity to the company’s mainline in Canada and the U.S. Midwest with an in-service target of 2014.

It would be in addition to Enbridge’s expansions in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, including the reversal of the Seaway pipeline between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Texas, due to start up this month with the aim of draining off a glut of supply at the storage hub.

“These two large programs have both come to fruition in the last six months, achieving the strategy of expanding access to new markets in North America for growing production from western Canada and the Bakken which we embarked on several years ago,” Steve Wuori, president of the company’s pipeline division, said in a statement. “Importantly, these initiatives utilize existing pipeline infrastructure that minimizes our construction footprint.”

The developments come as Enbridge also seeks to win approval for its controversial Northern Gateway oil pipeline to Canada’s West Coast, which would result in tar sands-derived crude being shipped by tanker to Asia and California.

As part of the “Eastern Access” initiative, Enbridge would expand a pipeline between Michigan and Ohio and reverse the flow of the 240,000 barrel a day Line 9 between Sarnia and Montreal back to the West-East direction it was initially designed for in the 1970s.

The company also said it plans to bolster the capacities of its Spearhead and Line 6B pipelines in the Midwest, currently the largest market for Canadian oil. This year the crude has been hit with deep discounts due partly to pipeline bottlenecks in the region.

In a separate development, the Calgary-based company said it plans to expand its mainline with a C$400 million project between Neche, North Dakota, and Flanagan, Illinois, near Chicago. It will spend C$200 million expanding the Canadian portion of that system.

Cairn Energy Plc said Thursday it has teamed up with Houston-based Marathon Oil Corp. to jointly bid for oil and gas exploration rights in Cyprus, where huge offshore discoveries of natural gas have reignited international tensions over the divided island.

Cairn and joint venture partner Marathon submitted bids May 11, with a decision by the Cyprus Ministry of Commerce Industry and Tourism expected later this year.

Recent discoveries of natural gas deposits in the waters off Cyprus and Israel have aroused interest in the eastern Mediterranean from the world’s leading energy firms, including Italian giant Eni SpA and French major Total SA. However, the prospect of hydrocarbon wealth has also served to enflame a long-standing dispute between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish-controlled Republic of Northern Cyprus.

“Cyprus offers early stage frontier exploration acreage with moderate technical risk,” said Cairn in a statement.

Despite political objections from Turkey, Cyprus earlier this year went ahead with its latest offshore licensing round, the island nation’s second offering to foreign firms following a 2007 tender.

U.S. firm Noble Energy Inc. has since made five discoveries in the block it was awarded in the 2007 round, with total natural gas resources found by the firm so far estimated at 33 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The drilling for gas and oil in the seabed off Cyprus – which began last year–angered Turkey, which says it abuses northern Cypriots’ rights to the same resources.

In April, Turkey launched its own exploratory drilling in the seabed offshore from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, drawing a sharp response from the government of Cyprus, which labelled the action as illegal.

Marathon and Cairn both control 40% each of the bidding consortium, which also includes junior partners CC Energy SAL and Oranje-Nassau Energie BV.

Cairn shares traded higher early Thursday. At 0724 GMT, Cairn shares were up five pence, or 1.8%, at 296p.

UK-based energy giant BG Group announced Wednesday its fifth consecutive Tanzanian gas discovery with the Mzia-1 exploration well located in Block 1, offshore southern Tanzania.

CAMAC Energy on Tuesday announced that it has signed Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) with the government of  The Republic of Kenya for previously awarded exploration Blocks L1B, located onshore in the Lamu Basin, and L16, located in the Lamu Basin transition zone. Block L16 is bordered on the east by Block L8, operated by Apache Corporation, and is located just northwest of Block L9, operated by Ophir Energy plc.

In addition, the Company has signed PSCs for Block L27 and Block L28, two recently created deep water blocks. The two offshore blocks, which are contiguous, cover a combined area of approximately 8,173 square miles (21,170 square kilometres). Blocks L27 and L28 are immediately east of deep water blocks L11A and L11B, respectively, both operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

CAMAC Energy will be the operator and have a 90 percent interest in all four PSCs, with the government of Kenya holding a 10 percent carried interest prior to designation of any commercial discoveries. The Company expects to partner with an indigenous company for a minority interest. During the initial exploration phase under each contract, the Company will be conducting surveys, acquiring and interpreting 2D and 3D seismic data and identifying prospects for future drilling. The execution of the PSCs represents CAMAC Energy’s official entry into Kenya and the East African exploration frontier.

Segun Omidele, Senior Vice President, Exploration and Production, commented, “Signing the PSCs for these four blocks in Kenya represents a milestone in CAMAC Energy’s strategy to acquire highly prospective exploration acreage in targeted oil and gas basins in Africa. Moving forward, the Company will focus on unlocking the value from these assets as well as our positions in West Africa, as we continue to pursue additional opportunities to add to our exploration portfolio in both East and West Africa.”

Asian energy giant PetroChina plans to join with Shell Canada and major energy companies in Japan and South Korea in developing a liquefied natural gas export project in British Columbia.

Shell will hold a 40 percent stake in the project, with Korea Gas Corp., Mitsubishi Corp. and PetroChina Co. each holding 20 percent shares, the Chinese state oil and gas company said Wednesday.

The plan calls for large tankers to transport LNG from the northwest coast port of Kitimat in British Columbia, the end point of a proposed pipeline that will direct oil to energy-hungry Asian markets.

Japanese demand for LNG has surged following the closure of Japan’s nuclear plants in the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami and subsequent disasters at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors.

Natural gas piped to Kitimat will be cooled into a liquid and loaded onto tankers for export. Natural gas fetches a drastically higher price overseas than it does in the oversupplied North American market.

Jose-Alberto Lima, Shell’s vice president for LNG in the Americas, said the project would be “well-suited to deliver long-term value for British Columbia and new export markets for Canada.”

The plan to have tankers traveling to Kitimat is subject to an environmental review, though Canada’s transportation safety agency gave its approval in February. The port project faces strong local opposition due to fears of the risk of a spill.

In a statement, PetroChina acknowledged that concern, saying the announcement “begins an extensive consultation process with First Nations and local community residents regarding the project.”

It said the LNG Canada project would initially have two processing units with a capacity of 6 million tons of LNG a year, which might be doubled later.

The project may begin development in 2015 and finish by 2020, depending on regulatory approvals. Its backers say it will create thousands of jobs during construction and hundreds of permanent jobs once it is operating.