LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We are particularly concerned about the
situation among the small and mediumsized banks, which are most heavily exposed to the commercial real estate sector.”
Christopher Towe,
the International Monetary Fund’s deputy director of monetary and capital markets Article, 1DU.S. oil, gas rig count up 1 to 1,586
HOUSTON - The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. increased by one this week to 1,586.
Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. said Friday that 972 rigs were exploring for natural gas and 603 for oil. Eleven were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago this week, the rig count stood at 948.
Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Louisiana and Wyoming each gained three rigs, and Arkansas, California and North Dakota each gained two. Colorado and Texas each gained one rig. Oklahoma lost nine rigs, and New Mexico and West Virginia each lost two. Pennsylvania and Alaska remain unchanged.
The rig count tally peaked at 4,530 in 1981, during the height of the oil boom. The industry posted a low of 488 in 1999.
Flippin boat builder plans to hire 50
Fishing Holdings of Flippin will hire about 50 new employees in the Marion County town with its acquisition of Triton Boats of Ashland City, Tenn., said Mark Zwicker, sales manager for Fishing Holdings, on Friday.
The positions will pay about $10 to $12 an hour, Zwicker said.
Fishing Holdings, a manufacturer and marketer of fiberglass fishing boats, announced Thursday that it purchased Triton Boats from Brunswick Corp.
Fishing Holdings makes Ranger boats in Flippin. It will begin building Triton’s fiberglass boats in Flippin this fall.
Triton will continue to build aluminum boats in Missouri, Zwicker said.
Fishing Holdings is owned by Platinum Equity of Los Angeles.
China ‘blockage’ just a Google glitch
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. triggered a false alarm Thursday by posting a notice that its search engine and several other services had been cut off from mainland China - a key market where the company has been locked in a high-profile battle over online censorship.
But what initially looked like a dramatic development turned out to be nothing more than a technological hiccup.
After the company’s report of a complete blockage in China had been relayed by The Associated Press and other media, Google backed off the claim.
The company, based in Mountain View, said its system for tracking Internet access appeared to have misinterpreted what was happening to its search, mobile and advertising services in China.
“It’s possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage,” Google said in a statement.
“That seems to be what happened [Thursday] when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally.”
When the AP initially inquired about the problem in China, a Google spokesman said he had no other details beyond what the company was listing on its website.
GM to raise Volt factory capacity 50%
DETROIT- General Motors said Friday that it is increasing production capacity for its new Chevrolet Volt because of strong public interest in the electric car that goes on sale this year.
GM will now have a production capacity of 45,000 vehicles in 2012, up from previous plans for 30,000 vehicles.
The automaker made the announcement as President Barack Obama toured the Volt production facility in Detroit.
The federal government sank $50 billion into GM as part of the broader rescue of the auto industry, giving taxpayers a majority stake in the nation’s largest auto company.
The Volt can go 340 miles on a single battery charge, according to GM. The vehicle is powered purely by the battery in the first 40 miles, and then uses a small gasoline engine to power the electric motor for an additional 300 miles.
Chevrolet dealers began taking orders this week for the 2011 model.
GM recently raised the number of launch markets for the Volt from three to seven.
Delta fined for Northwest price-fixing
Delta Air Lines will pay $38 million fine to settle criminal accusations that the cargo unit of Northwest Airlines fixed prices.
The Justice Department announced the guilty plea Friday. A felony charged filed in federal court in Washington says Northwest met with other airlines from 2000 to 2006 to fix prices on cargo between the U.S. and Japan.
Delta Air Lines Inc. bought Northwest in 2008, and the two carriers have been combined. The stand-alone cargo unit has been shut down.
The Justice Department says more than a dozen airlines have pleaded guilty and have paid more than $1.6 billion in criminal fines.
A $5 million fine against American Airlines was announced Wednesday.
Weyerhaeuser says markets unsettled
Weyerhaeuser Co., a homebuilder and the secondlargest owner of U.S. timberlands, said the timing of a recovery in demand for new single-family housing remains “uncertain.”
Sales of new homes are sagging after the expiration this year of a federal incentive, executives of the Federal Way, Wash.-based company said Friday on a conference call after reporting second-quarter earnings.
“Last quarter, I noted that the pace of the housing recovery remained uncertain and this continues to be true three months later,” Chief Executive Officer Dan Fulton said on the call.
“This has been especially evident in the market retreat following the expiration of the federal homebuyer tax credit at the end of April.”
The annual pace of U.S. new-home sales in May was the lowest in data going back to 1963, figures from the Commerce Department showed. The rate in June was the second-lowest.
“Our housing markets remain unsettled with low consumer confidence and high unemployment outweighing attractive mortgage [rates] and record affordability,” said Larry Burrows, the head of Weyerhaeuser’s real estate unit.
Business, Pages 26 on 07/31/2010