Questar plans 4,000 wells along Colo.-Wyo. border
Questar Corp. said it plans to drill 4,000 oil and gas wells in a 150,000-acre area along the Colorado-Wyoming border over the next 30 years. Drilling could start as early as 2008, the Salt Lake City-based company said Wednesday.
About 60 percent of the drilling would take place in Wyoming, while the rest would be in northwestern Colorado, said Vincent Rigatti, Questar market resources general manager. The majority of the wells would pump natural gas.
He said most of the sites are on Bureau of Land Management property. He said the BLM could issue a final environmental impact statement by June 2007 and give the company permission to drill in early 2008.
Rigatti said workers would be based in Rock Springs, Wyo., but Moffat County would also receive substantial tax revenue.
Rigatti said he has been discussing the plans with local officials and doesn’t expect fierce opposition because drilling has taken place there since the 1920s.
Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, said Questar or any other company would encounter opposition if it sought to drill near two citizen-proposed wilderness areas.
“If the wells are placed in areas that are already currently drilled, that would make this a much less controversial project,” he said.
FORT COLLINS
Research Data Design to hire 250 for center
Portland, Ore.-based Research Data Design will hire 250 workers at a planned call center in Fort Collins, the company said Thursday.
The company, which collects market data for companies in industries such as health care, insurance and automotive, will begin moving into its recently leased office space early next month.
The jobs range from research callers to managers, with about half the positions full time.
DENVER
2 insurance licenses suspended over deals
The Colorado Division of Insurance has suspended the insurance licenses of Dennis Marlow of Monument and Joseph D’Altilia of Colorado Springs for selling annuities that were unsuitable to their clients and pocketing $1.7 million in bonuses.
Marlow and D’Altilia are alleged to have sold fixed index annuities with penalties on withdrawals made within nine years of purchase to individuals in their 80s, among others.
Officials will seek restitution for the alleged victims.
DENVER
Health, wellness panel aims to improve both
With obese employees tending to have higher health care costs, Colorado leaders are touting the state’s low obesity rate and trying to make the Denver area even healthier.
A group of health care, government and business leaders launched the Metro Denver Health and Wellness Commission on Thursday to make metro Denver a leader for healthy lifestyles.
The Trust for America’s Health last year said Colorado had the nation’s lowest obesity rate at 16.4 percent. That could change, though, as the population ages and people from other states move in.
DENVER
Frontier now flies San Francisco-L.A.
Discount carrier Frontier Airlines began service Thursday between Los Angeles and San Francisco, hoping to capitalize on the busy traffic between the two large cities.
The Denver-based carrier expects to create 80 jobs, 40 in each city, to handle the operations at Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport. It hopes to serve about 158,000 passengers a year with five daily flights.
Frontier’s stock rose 14 cents to $6.95 a share on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
IHS sees revenue rise, lifts earnings estimate
IHS, a Douglas County-based provider of technical and engineering standards used by companies in the aviation and energy industries, on Thursday reported a sharp rise in revenue and upped its earnings estimates for the year.
Shares jumped $3.35, or 12.8 percent, to close at $29.35. The company posted a profit of $12.9 million, or 23 cents a share, on revenue of $139 million.
That’s up from a year ago, when profits were $8.6 million, or 15 cents a share, on revenue of $115.1 million.
NEW YORK
Title insurers cut N.Y. rates in settlement
Fidelity National Financial Inc. and First American Corp., the two biggest U.S. title insurers, cut their rates in New York state by 15 percent as part of a May 23 regulatory settlement.
The accord with Fidelity National, based in Jacksonville, Fla., and First American, based in Santa Ana, Calif., also imposed a $2 million fine on each company.
WASHINGTON
Design change urged for airplane fuel tanks
U.S. airlines should be required to modify fuel tanks in airplane wings to reduce the risk of an explosion after such a tank blew up last month in India, the head of a U.S. safety board said.
U.S. aviation regulators in November proposed requiring airlines to cut the flammability of tanks in the belly of planes, known as center-wing tanks. The National Transportation Safety Board wants wing fuel tanks outside the plane to be included in the rule.
Major U.S. airlines oppose the rule for center-wing tanks, saying the explosion risk has been sufficiently reduced and the rule would cost $1.2 billion over 49 years, not $808 million as the FAA suggests.
TOKYO
Computer problems shut down market
Trading in Japan’s government bond market, the world’s biggest, slowed to a standstill after a computer malfunction at the nation’s biggest fixed-income broker.
Japan Bond Trading Co., the nation’s largest interdealer broker, stopped trading for two hours and 25 minutes because of a computer malfunction.
The failure comes five months after the Tokyo Stock Exchange was forced to shorten its hours because its computers couldn’t cope with a surge in orders.
SYDNEY, Australia
Murdoch may deal TV stations to Malone
Rupert Murdoch “intends to sell some of News Corp.’s local U.S. television stations within the next year and may use the sale to buy back an 18 percent stake in the company owned by John Malone,” The Times of London reported, citing comments Thursday by Murdoch in Sydney, Australia.
Malone is chairman of Liberty Media Corp., based in Douglas County.
