JEFFERSON COUNTY – Southwest Plaza Mall in Jefferson County on Thursday said it will maintain extended weekend hours on a year-round basis, based on customer feedback.
Beginning today, the mall will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The mall will maintain its normal hours Sundays through Thursdays.
MORE BRIEFS
DENVER
PetroHunter to buy oil and gas interests
PetroHunter Energy Corp. of Denver announced Thursday it has agreed to purchase all of Denver-based Galaxy Energy Corp.’s oil and gas interests in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana.
PetroHunter will pay $45 million for the properties – $20 million in cash and $25 million in stock.
DURANGO
Chocolate-maker says
3rd quarter was sweet
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. on Thursday said third-quarter earnings gained 19.4 percent to $1.33 million, up from $1.12 million a year ago.
Earnings per share rose 22.2 percent to 22 cents, up from 18 cents per share a year ago. Revenues during the same period gained 13.8 percent to about $9.1 million, compared with about $8 million a year ago.
GREELEY
UAP Holding Corp. posts $13.2 million loss
UAP Holding Corp., a Greeley-based distributor of agricultural products, posted a third- quarter loss of $13.2 million, or 26 cents per share, compared with a loss of $9.3 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.
Sales increased by 16.3 percent to $375.7 million, compared with $323.1 million for the same period of the previous year.
DENVER
DIA ranks 6th-busiest for flights in 2006
Denver International Airport was the sixth-busiest airport in the U.S. based on number of flights in 2006, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International was the busiest airport for the year, the FAA said.
In a different ranking based on numbers of passengers, DIA ranked No. 5 for the year through September, according to the most recent airline traffic report from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
LIMA, Peru
Newmont buys Peru mines for $13.9 million
Denver-based Newmont Gold Corp.’s Minera Yanacocha, the world’s second-biggest gold mine, bought four mining concessions in northern Peru for $13.9 million.
Yanacocha purchased 2,999 hectares of land in the northern Andean region of Cajamarca in Peru from Minera Carpa de Sorochuco SA, according to a filing with Peru’s securities regulator.
DES MOINES, Iowa
Corn demand could drive up food prices
The rapidly growing demand for corn to produce ethanol is greater than the government realizes and could drive up food prices because of livestock feed shortages, an agricultural economist said Thursday.
Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank, warned that nearly twice as much corn as the government has estimated will be needed from the 2008 harvest to feed the ethanol plants that will be on line by then.
ATLANTA
Cingular to raise cost to send text messages
Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S. cellphone service, will raise the rate for sending a text message to 15 cents from 10 cents.
The new rate applies to customers who pay on a per-message basis and takes effect Jan. 21, said Rochelle Cohen, spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based company. There are no changes to monthly plans for text messaging.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Digital market eats into U.S. album sales
U.S. album sales continued to decline in 2006, down nearly 5 percent from the previous year, but total music sales were up thanks to a huge increase in digital downloads.
Year-end sales figures released Thursday by Nielsen SoundScan said 588.2 million albums were sold in 2006 – a 4.9 percent decline from 2005.
