Whole Hog to serve fliers at LR airport
The South Terminal restaurant at TAC Air LIT -- the fixed-base operator at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/ Adams Field -- will close Saturday so that Whole Hog Cafe can take its place.
Whole Hog, based in Little Rock, also has Arkansas locations in west Little Rock, North Little Rock, Bentonville, Bryant, Conway, Fayetteville and Fort Smith, as well as Cherry Hill, N.J.; two in Springfield, Mo.; and one each in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M.
Whole Hog will open at TAC Air LIT on Monday.
-- Cyd King
Business on 02/28/2015
$7.6M now available
for low-cost housing
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is offering $7.6 million in competitive grants this year in the Affordable Housing Program in a five-state area.
The five states that will receive a portion of the funds are Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. The grants will assist in the development of affordable owner-occupied and rental housing for very low-to-moderate income families in the five states.
There is no portion of the funds allocated specifically for Arkansas or the other states, said Bennett Butler, a spokesman for the bank.
But last year Arkansas projects received $195,976 of the $9.8 million that was available, Butler said.
-- David Smith
S. Africa port gears for big cargo ships
The South African port of Durban has started an excavation project to triple its capacity to handle large container ships, encouraging more vessels to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, rather than use the Suez Canal.
Global maritime traffic is increasingly dominated by large vessels that need to be serviced at specialized deep ports, Mark Gregg-MacDonald, an executive at state transport company Transnet SOC Ltd., told reporters in Durban on Friday. The city is South Africa's third-largest and has its busiest harbor.
"It's more cost-effective to sail modern, large container vessels around the Cape than through the Suez Canal," Gregg-MacDonald said.
Work on the project started in 2012 and the first phase is due to be completed by 2025.
The port expansion will contribute at least $1.4 billion to the South African economy, Gregg- MacDonald said.
-- Bloomberg News
Exec urges Obama to end oil-export ban
President Barack Obama could authorize U.S. crude oil exports with an executive order, according to Harold Hamm, founder and chief executive officer of Continental Resources Inc.
Export restrictions, a boon to refiners, hurt oil producers, Hamm said Friday in an interview on CNBC.
The export ban was an "enforcement tool of price control back in the '70s," Hamm said. "It could be done away with with an executive order. I would expect the president to do that."
Hamm also said he expects U.S. oil production to fall in March or April as producers cut drilling after prices collapsed. Prices will recover once the U.S. is in "undersupply," he said.
"We should lose, we're estimating, about 1.5 million barrels a day of U.S. production, in the first year from May to May of 2016," Hamm said. "So it happens real quick."
Continental Resources Inc. is the largest leaseholder and producer in the Bakken shale play of North Dakota and Montana.
-- Bloomberg News
Saudis lead OPEC oil-production gains
Saudi Arabia led gains in OPEC oil production this month after the world's biggest crude exporter sought to protect its market share as oil rebounded from a six-year low.
Production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries climbed 163,000 barrels a day to 30.568 million a day this month, led by gains in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, according to a Bloomberg survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. Last month's total was revised 500,000 barrels lower to 30.405 million a day because of changes to the Iraqi estimate.
OPEC left its production quotas unchanged at a November meeting, prompting speculation that the group will let prices slide low enough to slow U.S. output that's climbed to the highest level in three decades. Brent, the benchmark for more than half the world's oil, touched $45.19 on Jan. 13, the lowest since March 2009.
"The Saudis said they were committed to fully supply the market and are fighting for market share," John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund that focuses on energy, said by phone. "The Saudis are indifferent to low prices and will keep pumping. There's been no tangible drop anywhere so prices are going to stay under pressure."
Output in Saudi Arabia climbed 130,000 barrels a day to 9.85 million a day, the highest level since September 2013 and the biggest increase in the survey. A barrel of oil equals 42 gallons.
--Bloomberg News
Pemex loses $7.75B; oil-price dip cited
Petroleos Mexicanos posted its ninth consecutive quarterly loss as declining output and plunging oil prices pinched the state-owned company's earnings as it prepares to open for private competition at home.
The Mexico City-based company's net loss of $7.75 billion widened from a $5.1 billion loss a year ago, the producer known as Pemex said Friday in a statement. Sales for the quarter slid 10 percent to $24.4 billion from a year earlier as production fell to the lowest level in 24 years.
Pemex will cut staff in the next few weeks after trimming $4.1 billion of its budget amid the fall in oil prices, Chief Financial Officer Mario Beauregard said last week in an interview with Radio Formula. The company is counting on Mexico's landmark 2013 law that opens the country's energy industry to private competition to stem declining output.
Some of Pemex's planned investments for the energy overhaul, forecast by the government to bring in $50 billion of private investment by 2018, will be delayed by the lower prices, Chief Executive Officer Emilo Lozoya has said.
-- Bloomberg News
Auto underwriting loss dings State Farm
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest U.S. property-casualty insurer, said 2014 profit fell 19 percent as the underwriting loss widened on car coverage.
Net income for the year fell to $4.2 billion from $5.2 billion in 2013, the Bloomington, Ill.-based company said Friday in a statement. The auto underwriting loss was $3.4 billion, compared with $2.4 billion in 2013. Claims costs at the car unit rose by $2.5 billion to $29.5 billion.
Policyholder-owned State Farm, which gets most of its premium revenue from car insurance, is confronting increased competition from publicly traded rivals including Allstate Corp. and Progressive Corp. Travelers Cos. Chief Executive Officer Jay Fishman, whose company relies more on commercial lines, said this month that the auto business faces pressure amid rising costs per claim and the prospect that eventual safety improvements could limit demand for coverage.
"I really am very pleased that we are not a monoline auto company," Fishman said at a Bank of America Corp. conference this month. "I'd be just really struggling strategically with that now."
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 02/28/2015