The daily business briefing: September 19, 2016
Gas prices rise in Southeast after pipeline spill, oil prices lift stocks ahead of Fed meeting, and more
- 1. Pipeline rupture sends gas prices up in Southeast
- 2. Oil prices lift stocks ahead of central bank meetings
- 3. Rolls-Royce cuts 200 management positions as turnaround effort continues
- 4. Sully leads the box office for second straight week
- 5. Olive Garden endless pasta passes fetch rising prices on eBay
1. Pipeline rupture sends gas prices up in Southeast
Gas prices jumped by about 10 percent in much of the Southeast over the weekend after a major gasoline pipeline ruptured in central Alabama. The Colonial Pipeline network, which transports 1.3 million barrels a day from Houston refineries to distribution centers across the Southeast, spilled up to 336,000 gallons of fuel upstream from a national wildlife refuge, but the environmental damage was minimal because a drought has left stream beds in the area dry, limiting the flow of the gas downstream. "We really did bypass the bullet," said Myra Crawford, executive director at Cahaba Riverkeeper. "It could have been horrible."
2. Oil prices lift stocks ahead of central bank meetings
Global stocks rallied early Monday as oil prices bounced back from a one-month low. Major oil producers next week plan to meet in Algiers to discuss cooperating to boost prices despite a global oil glut. Investors this week will be waiting to see what central banks plan to do next about interest rates. The Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve both will wrap up their two-day policy meetings on Wednesday. Fed policy makers have been split in recent weeks on whether data on inflation, employment, and growth indicate the time is right for a slight increase in interest rates.
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3. Rolls-Royce cuts 200 management positions as turnaround effort continues
Rolls-Royce announced Sunday that it was cutting more than 200 management jobs as part of the British marine- and jet-engine maker's ongoing turnaround effort. The company, which was separated from the luxury-car brand of the same name in the 1970s, last year launched a restructuring aiming to cut $195 million or more in annual expenses by 2017. Before the turnaround program started, the company had 2,000 senior managers, but it lost several dozen in January and 150 more in March.
4. Sully leads the box office for second straight week
Sully, Clint Eastwood's dramatization of the airline emergency landing known as the Miracle on the Hudson, led the box office for the second straight weekend, hauling in $22 million and beating out Blair Witch, Bridget Jones's Baby, and Oliver Stone's Snowden. None of the other films came close to Sully, which stars Tom Hanks as pilot Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. Blair Witch was No. 2 at $9.7 million, followed by Bridget Jones's Baby with $8.2 million and Snowden with $8 million, the worst debut in Stone's career.
5. Olive Garden endless pasta passes fetch rising prices on eBay
Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Passes — which entitle a diner to seven weeks of access to the restaurant chain's Never Ending Pasta Bowl — are selling for $180.50 to $4,500 on eBay. The passes, good from Oct. 3 to Nov. 20, were priced at $100 each but the limited quantities promptly sold out. The pasta selections sell for $9.99 to those without a pass. Last year, the 2,000 passes that Olive Garden made available sold out in less than one minute, and the average pass holder visited the Italian restaurant chain 28 times during the promotion.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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