NEW YORK (Reuters) – Veeco Instruments Inc hopes its nascent solar equipment business will begin to generate profits this year as it makes its first shipments into the fast-growing Asian market.

“I think we’ll make money this year. That’s our goal,” Chief Executive John Peeler told Reuters in an interview.

Veeco’s biggest business is through the sale of equipment to make LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, but it hopes to grow in the market that produces photovoltaic solar systems.

Veeco has orders worth about $30 million for solar making equipment from customers in China and South Korea, and it expects to ship them in the first half of the year and receive revenues in the second half, he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese wind and solar companies told a renewable energy conference on Thursday they were looking abroad for burgeoning markets in renewable energy.

Chinese renewable energy companies have been among the fastest growing in the world as subsidies in their home market, Europe and the United States and generous loans from Beijing have spurred a boom in manufacturing of the clean power systems.

Still, as countries such as Germany pare back incentives and the United States struggles with high unemployment figures, some companies and politicians in those countries are calling for more restrictions to protect their domestic industries.

Typically, China has trailed European and U.S. companies in entering nascent industries, but that has changed with the growing solar sector, said Hunter Jiang, president of GCL Solar Energy. “Today we are the leader,” he said.

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Chinese wind and solar companies told a renewable energy conference on Thursday they were looking abroad for burgeoning markets in renewable energy.

Chinese renewable energy companies have been among the fastest growing in the world as subsidies in their home market, Europe and the United States and generous loans from Beijing have spurred a boom in manufacturing of the clean power systems.

Still, as countries such as Germany pare back incentives and the United States struggles with high unemployment figures, some companies and politicians in those countries are calling for more restrictions to protect their domestic industries.

Typically, China has trailed European and U.S. companies in entering nascent industries, but that has changed with the growing solar sector, said Hunter Jiang, president of GCL Solar Energy. “Today we are the leader,” he said.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Chevron Corp posted a drop in quarterly profit on Friday, and its new boss said the second-largest U.S. oil company had plenty of work to do on its own project line-up without making any big acquisitions.

Chief Executive John Watson also said there would be no refinery closures in the near term, despite a bad performance in the fourth quarter that weighed heavily on its bottom line.

Exxon Mobil Corp’s <XOM.N> planned purchase of U.S. natural gas producer XTO Energy <XTO.N> cast the industry’s attention on how Exxon’s smaller rivals might respond.

Chevron’s anticipated 2010 production growth will not come anywhere close to the 9 percent fourth-quarter increase, but Watson, who just took over the top job at the start of January, said the company’s long-term pipeline was very full.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Chevron Corp <CVX.N> posted a drop in quarterly profit on Friday, and its new boss said the second-largest U.S. oil company had plenty of work to do on its own project line-up without making any big acquisitions.

Chief Executive John Watson also said there would be no refinery closures in the near term, despite a bad performance in the fourth quarter that weighed heavily on its bottom line.

Exxon Mobil Corp’s <XOM.N> planned purchase of U.S. natural gas producer XTO Energy <XTO.N> cast the industry’s attention on how Exxon’s smaller rivals might respond.

Chevron’s anticipated 2010 production growth will not come anywhere close to the 9 percent fourth-quarter increase, but Watson, who just took over the top job at the start of January, said the company’s long-term pipeline was very full.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Occidental Petroleum Corp <OXY.N>, the fourth-largest U.S. oil and gas company, said Thursday that its quarterly profit more than doubled, boosted by higher oil prices and increased output.

Its shares recovered from early losses as it outlined a big rise in 2010 capital expenditures and said first-quarter sales volumes would be between 730,000 and 740,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 722,000 in the fourth quarter.

Under a reformatted reporting system that aligns the company with its peers, total 2009 daily production was 714,000 boe, compared with 645,000 before the change.

Overall 2009 output rose 7 percent from 2008, and the company expects 2010 output to grow by 5 percent to 8 percent.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Oilfield services leader Schlumberger Ltd <SLB.N> posted a quarterly profit tarnished by weak margins, but talked of more spending by oil companies this year, including those in Iraq.

Schlumberger shares fell 4.5 percent on Friday, as U.S. crude oil prices hit one-month lows and analysts worried about how robust the better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit was.

Chief Executive Andrew Gould expected international margins to bottom out in the middle of 2010, and warned that natural gas production presented few growth opportunities outside the United States in the next few years.

Yet the cautious executive offered a much better view of the potential for oilfield activity in Iraq based on the plans set out in the latest round of bidding for contracts.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Oilfield services leader Schlumberger Ltd <SLB.N> posted a quarterly profit tarnished by weak margins, but talked of more spending by oil companies this year, including those in Iraq.

Schlumberger shares fell 4.5 percent on Friday, as U.S. oil prices <CLc1> hit one-month lows and analysts worried about how robust the better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit was.

Chief Executive Andrew Gould expected international margins to bottom out in the middle of 2010, and warned that natural gas production presented few growth opportunities outside the United States in the next few years.

Yet the cautious executive offered a much better view of the potential for oilfield activity in Iraq based on the plans set out in the latest round of bidding for contracts.

NEW ORLEANS, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Sluggish U.S. electricity prices are crimping a resurgence in financing for new renewable energy projects, according to energy bankers.

While the bond market’s appetite for project debt has returned and federal incentives have attracted spending from the private sector on new projects, weak electricity demand has made it difficult for project developers to lock in long-term sales contracts at prices needed to make new wind and solar farms profitable.

“Clearly power prices are down, and people are hesitant,” John Eber, managing director of energy investments at JPMorgan Capital Corp, told the Projects & Money conference. “That’s putting a lot of pressure on project economics. There’s a lot of wait-and-see to see if those prices come up.”

Power demand is typically linked to the economy, and the recent recession helped knock usage down as much as 20 percent in some spots last summer, he said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – European companies have scooped up the majority of U.S. stimulus money set aside for wind power projects, drawing on their expertise and global reach to tap into Washington’s effort to grow the base of renewable energy sources.

While those government funds have generated U.S. jobs and provided a lifeline to the green energy industry during the financial crisis, the cash flows show European companies remain crucial to U.S. goals to advance the renewable power sector.

The U.S. Treasury Department has helped fund some 150 renewable energy projects from a portion of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and has given out grants worth more than $1.5 billion to wind projects.

More than two-thirds of that money, or $1.06 billion, has gone to projects developed by European-based companies.