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Archive for June, 2008

Marathon Begins Heavy Oil Refinery Upgrade Project

Michigan’s only gasoline refinery, Marathon Oil in southwest Detroit, received final permission Friday to begin a $1.9-billion expansion of its plant, which will create 800 construction jobs and more than 100 permanent jobs and, possibly, give some gas price relief in 2011 to drivers in southeast Michigan.

Marathon officials moved quickly after getting the news, beginning construction within minutes of learning it had received the permit to start.

“We’re thrilled,” said company spokeswoman Chris Fox.

The company had pile drivers in the ground at the site minutes after the Department of Environmental Quality announced it had approved its air pollution permit.

“We’ve had people on standby, waiting for weeks,” Fox said.

House Passes Unemployment Extension

WASHINGTON — After a breakthrough with the White House, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a bill Thursday night that would extend jobless benefits by 13 weeks to an estimated 4 million unemployed workers.

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation, which is combined with funding for the Iraq war, sometime next week. The White House issued a statement Thursday indicating the president would sign the package.

The unemployment compensation is critical to Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, at 8.5 percent. The national average is 5.5 percent.

Hundreds Indicted in Mortgage Fraud

WASHINGTON – Federal authorities announced Thursday that more than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March — including dozens over the past two days — in nationwide crackdown on mortgage fraud that has contributed to the country’s housing crisis.

Michigan Unemployment Hits 8.5% in May.

Michigan’s unemployment rate leaped to 8.5 percent in May, the highest monthly level since the doldrums of October 1992, according to the state Department of Labor & Economic Growth. The shocking 1.6 point hike for the month comes just one month shy of the state’s eighth straight year of payroll job losses.

After years of being gripped in a one-state recession, Michigan now confronts those tough numbers again, with the U.S. economy on the brink of a recession.

By now, most experts had expected the state’s long pain would begin to ease. But that was before gas hit $4 a gallon, the housing market prompted a national credit crisis and grocery bills skyrocketed — all of it translating into dwindling vehicle sales.

How long will it last? Depending on which economist is talking, at least another year, maybe two. Maybe far longer.

The one thing they all say is that Michigan won’t be the way it was, even after the state’s economy levels out.

Tough Times For Michigan

It’s the longest stretch of job loss in Michigan since the 1929 stock market crash plunged the nation into depression, U-M economists Joan Crary, George Fulton and Saul Hymans wrote in a forecast last month. “At no time in its history, or at least as far back as the records take us, has the state endured such a drawn-out disturbance.”

Republicans Reject Unemployed

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to bring the House-passed unemployment extension bill up for quick consideration in the Senate, but was stymied by an objection from Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. It takes unanimous agreement to fast track a bill in the Senate.

The House on Thursday passed legislation that would extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for workers who exhaust their regular 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. States with an unemployment rate of 6% or more would get an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits.

Oil Prices Continue Climb to New Record

NEW YORK – Crude oil futures swung wildly on Monday, rising to a record and then tumbling as investors wrestled with whether they should put stock in Saudi Arabia’s promise to boost production. Retail gas prices rose to a record $4.08 a gallon.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery fell 25 cents to settle at $134.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier soaring to a trading record of $139.89. Earlier, they dropped as low as $132.84.

With little in the way of news to explain oil’s turnabout, analysts pointed to Saudi Arabia’s weekend decision to boost production and to Tuesday’s expiration of crude options, which are agreements to buy or sell futures at higher or lower prices.

House Rejects Jobless Bill

The House Wednesday rejected a temporary extension of jobless benefits, a measure that was widely expected to pass with a veto-proof majority. The final vote was 279 to 144.

The move came despite last week’s news that the May unemployment rate rose to 5.5 percent — the biggest one month jump in decades.

Democrats needed a two-thirds vote to pass the bill, which would have provided an extra 13 weeks of jobless benefits. That was also the margin needed to overcome a threatened White House veto.

Republicans complained the measure would have provided money to states that still have low unemployment rates.