Reopening Wyoming mine to cost Arch Coal $50 million
Gillette, Wyo. – Arch Coal plans to invest $50 million in a coal mine to get it reopened sometime this summer or early fall.
The Coal Creek mine, idle since 2000, is where Denver-based KFx Inc. has proposed a coal-enhancement plant similar to a plant that began operating in Campbell County in December.
“We view Coal Creek as one of the most strategic expansion opportunities in the entire U.S. coal industry,” said John Eaves, Arch chief operating officer, in an earnings report this week. “Demand for Powder River Basin coal is outstripping the industry’s ability to produce it.”
The announcement coincides with record-high coal production and prices in the Powder River Basin. Last year, the basin produced about 390 million tons of coal, or about a third of the nation’s coal.
Arch hopes the Coal Creek mine will produce at an annual rate of 15 million tons early next year, with capacity for another 5 million tons if demand warrants.
The mine is permitted to produce 25 million tons a year. Arch officials have said the reopened mine could employ more than 100 people.
DENVER
Centers get new owners in deals
Prominent Denver-area properties have new owners as a result of recent real-estate deals.
The World Trade Center towers in downtown Denver sold for $116 million. Brookfield Properties sold the buildings to Trans western Commercial Services and Broadreach Capital.
TIAA-CREF sold the Colorado Center at Interstate 25 and Colorado Boulevard to Lincoln Property Group and ASB Capital Management for $93 million. Tim Richey and Mike Winn of the Denver office of Cushman & Wakefield brokered both deals.
Additionally, Prudential purchased a portfolio of properties including Orchard Place I and II, Carrara Place, PacifiCare, Highland Court and Panorama Point.
DENVER
Sport-Haley settles with ex-auditors
Denver golfwear company Sport-Haley Inc. on Wednesday said it has agreed to a $525,000 settlement with its former auditors relating to damages the company said it suffered as a result of financial restatements for its 1998 and 1999 fiscal years and quarterly statements from 1998, 1999 and 2000.
Sport-Haley will retain $173,000, with the remainder of the money going to the company’s insurance carrier as partial reimbursement for a previously settled class-action lawsuit and defense costs related to a civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both sides continue to deny the claims against them.
DENVER
Panel OKs House bill to hike tourism funds
Legislation that would increase annual funding to the state’s tourism office from $5 million to $20 million passed the House Finance Committee on Wednesday by a vote of 11-2.
Introduced last month by Reps. Tom Plant, D-Nederland, Al White, R-Winter Park, and Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, House Bill 1201 could generate as much as $3 billion in additional economic activity, according to Plant.
DENVER
Charney Associates gets 5-month contract
Charney Associates, a Denver-based governance and policy consultancy, has been awarded a five-month contract by the Republic of Macedonia’s Ministry of Health to develop and formalize a system of governance for the country’s Health Insurance Fund.
The contract is part of a $10 million reconstruction and development program funded by the World Bank.
SPRINGDALE, Ark.
Tyson to consolidate work in Nebraska
Tyson Foods Inc. said Wednesday it will close two Nebraska beef facilities with 1,665 workers and move the work to another plant in that state.
Tyson said it will close its beef-processing plant in Norfolk and beef-slaughter plant in West Point, both in northeastern Nebraska. The company said the efficiencies at its Dakota City plant will save $40 million.
WASHINGTON
U.S. industrial production falls
U.S. industrial production unexpectedly fell last month as the warmest January in more than a century led to a record decline in utility use, even as manufacturing strengthened.
Output at factories, utilities and mines declined 0.2 percent after a revised 0.9 percent December gain that was more than previously reported, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. The share of industrial capacity in use was 80.9 percent, down from December’s 81.2 percent.
SEOUL, South Korea
Philips replaces Sanyo as Kodak partner
Eastman Kodak Co., which pioneered organic screen technology, will team up with South Korea’s LG.Philips LCD Co. to develop the product after losing Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co. as a partner.
Kodak and LG.Philips signed an agreement to evaluate each other’s technology for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode screens used in mobile phones and other portable electronic products, Seoul-based LG.Philips said in an e-mail Wednesday.
WASHINGTON
Knight Ridder union to bid on newspapers
Knight Ridder Inc.’s biggest employee union partnered with private-equity company Yucaipa Cos. to bid for nine of the company’s newspapers with major unions.
The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America has proposed buying the newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the union said in a statement Wednesday. The papers have a combined daily circulation of 1.3 million and employ 7,000 people.
CALGARY, Alberta
EnCana reports 4th-quarter dip
EnCana Corp., Canada’s largest natural-gas producer and a major driller on Colorado’s Western Slope, said fourth-quarter profit fell 8.3 percent as the company recorded smaller gains from asset sales than a year earlier.
Net income fell to $2.37 billion, or $2.71 a share, from $2.58 billion, or $2.77 a share, in the fourth quarter of 2004, the Calgary-based company said in a statement. Sales after royalties rose 65 percent, to $5.86 billion.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.
Oracle: Job cuts could cost it $800 million
Oracle Corp., the world’s No. 3 software maker, said a plan to eliminate 2,000 jobs will cost as much as $800 million.
Total costs related to the firings and other steps will be $725 million to $800 million, Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle said Wednesday.
