Business news in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You got notoriously big storms this time of year in the [Gulf of Alaska]. To tow it down [to Seattle] at this time of year, it was unwise.They didn’t realize what they were getting involved with, or overestimated their abilities to handle a tow like that.”

Dan Magone, president of Magone Marine, on the grounding of the Shell drilling rig Kulluk Article, 1D

Texas’ Pinnacle buys Tri State Propane

Pinnacle Propane LLC of Irving, Texas, said Friday that it has acquired the assets of Tri State Propane, based in Hiwasse, expanding the company’s presence to Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

“This acquisition allows us to enter Northwest Arkansas, a vibrant area showing continued population and economic growth,” said Rob Chalmers, senior vice president of corporate development at Pinnacle.

Tri State Propane will be rebranded Pinnacle Propane in the coming weeks, the company said. The business will continue to offer propane-bottle filling at the Tri State store as well as residential, agricultural and commercial delivery.

The store, at 13488 W. Arkansas 72 in Hiwasse, also offers forklift exchange, vehicle fuel and other services. The company serves Benton, Washington, Crawford, Madison and Carroll counties in Arkansas and Delaware, Adair and Cherokee counties in Oklahoma.

Pinnacle Propane, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of JP Energy Partners LP.

  • Steve Painter

Hawker pension hearing set Jan. 17

A hearing to consider a proposal for Hawker Beechcraft to shed two underfunded pension plans is scheduled for Jan. 17.

In a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York just before Christmas, Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft asked for approval to drop the two plans covering about 9,500 nonunion workers and retirees.

There are no union members among the roughly 170 workers at Hawker’s Little Rock completions center, where jets are finished out to customer specifications.

The request is part of an agreement with the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, according to reports by Aviation International News online and Business Insurance.

Terms of the agreement require Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. to assume responsibility for the two terminated pension plans, while Hawker Beechcraft will keep a pension plan covering its 8,200 current and former union employees, according to the reports.

Hawker plans to emerge from reorganization by Jan. 31 under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. It plans to shed its jet-manufacturing division while continuing to turn out propeller-driven models.

One plan has $358.3 million in assets and $727.5 million in liabilities, according to preliminary Pension Benefit Guaranty estimates. The other plan has $47.4 million in assets and $97.7 million in liabilities.

The third pension plan covering members of the union would be frozen.

  • Jack Weatherly

Rig count falls by 1 in week to 1,672

HOUSTON - Oil-field services company Baker Hughes Inc. said the number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. slipped by one this week to 1,762.

The Houston-based company said in its weekly report Friday that 1,318 rigs were exploring for oil and 439 for gas.

Five were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago, Baker Hughes counted 2,007 working rigs.

Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained four rigs and Pennsylvania increased by three. Colorado and Oklahoma each lost two rigs, while Louisiana, North Dakota and Wyoming dropped one rig each. Alaska, Arkansas, California, New Mexico and West Virginia remained unchanged.

The rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.

  • The Associated Press

Once-touted furniture maker closes

LINCOLNTON, N.C. - A startup North Carolina furniture company once celebrated as a sign of America’s manufacturing rebound has closed.

Lincolnton Furniture Co. was silent Friday, a day after shutting down. President Bruce Cochrane and other company officers did not return messages seeking comment.

Company financial officer Ben Causey said manufacturing operations were stopped indefinitely because orders were insufficient. He told The Charlotte Observer that only a few people would remain employed and the next steps were uncertain.

Lincolnton Furniture opened in December 2011 with 60 employees and had plans to expand.

President Barack Obama last year invited Cochrane to a White House event on moving overseas job back to America and he was a guest at the State of the Union address.

  • The Associated Press

Bank works to fend off cyber-attack

NEW YORK - PNC Bank has warned customers its websites are getting hit with high traffic consistent with computer attacks.

In an e-mail message sent to nearly 5 million customers, PNC Bank said the traffic is meant to cause delays for legitimate online banking customers. It says other banks are experiencing similar traffic spikes but did not identify them.

PNC Bank said that for several weeks it has worked to block the traffic and maintain online and mobile banking access for the vast majority of its customers. The company said it may have blocked access for a small percentage of its legitimate customers for an extended period.

PNC Bank assured its customers that its website uses encryption to protect customer information and accounts.

  • The Associated Press

Corps: Mississippi shutdown unlikely

ST. LOUIS - Federal officials said Friday that they’re confident that they’ll be able to keep a crucial stretch of the drought-starved Mississippi River open to barge traffic and avoid a shipping shutdown that the industry fears is imminent.

The Army Corps of Engineers said crews are making “fantastic” progress clearing treacherous bedrock from a channel south of St. Louis near Thebes, Ill. Barge operators are worried that water levels in that section of river may get so low that weight limits on shipments could be further tightened, effectively halting shipping.

Coast Guard Lt. Colin Fogarty said Friday that an eventual shutdown is possible but unlikely, given the Corps’ progress at Thebes and its water releases from at least two Midwest lakes into the Mississippi.

  • The Associated Press

Business, Pages 26 on 01/05/2013

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