From Chris Kahn, The Associated Press --

NEW YORK - Natural gas prices on Thursday fell to a new low for the year after the government reported that U.S. supplies grew more than expected last week.

The Energy Information Administration said the natural gas held in underground storage expanded by 93 billion cubic feet last week. Analysts expected an increase of between 86 and 90 billion cubic feet, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

From Bill White --

The board of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has approved issuing up to $31.5 million bonds for a Wasilla movie theater and two projects in Fairbanks.

The developers will be responsible for repaying the bonds. The state business development agency is issuing the tax-exempt bonds so that the developers can get lower interest rates.

The projects are:

From Bill White --

A new industry might be near birth in Sitka: selling clean, fresh water to India.

Newsweek reports that two companies – True Alaska Bottling and S2C Global – are teaming up on the project. True Alaska has rights to 3 billion gallons of water a year near Sitka. S2C is building the water-processing plant in India, the magazine says.

Tankers would carry the water to Mumbai. Sitka is hoping for a $90 million industry.

From Elizabeth Bluemink --

The owner of the Rock Creek gold mine near Nome is looking for someone to buy its medium-sized, defunct open-pit mine.

Just a few years ago, NovaGold Resources Inc., a British Columbia-based junior mining firm, had planned to make Rock Creek its first operating mine.

Now, NovaGold says it wants to focus on its other, bigger mineral prospects including the Donlin Creek gold project in the Kuskokwim River drainage and the Galore Creek copper-gold-silver project in British Columbia.

From Bill White --

The board of Arctic Slope Regional Corp. has declared a fall dividend of $51.83 per share, to be paid in mid-December.

The total payout will be about $60 million, the biggest regular dividend from ASRC, the company said.

The average ASRC shareholder owns 100 shares of ASRC stock and will receive $5,183. Barrow-based Native corporation for the North Slope region has about 11,000 shareholders.

From The Associated Press --

MOSCOW - British oil company BP has agreed to sell its energy assets in Venezuela and Vietnam to its Russian joint venture for $1.8 billion, the companies said in a statement Monday.

The deal is part of a series of sales BP is making to help pay for the oil spill damages in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be financed entirely by TNK-BP, which is owned 50-50 by BP and a group of Russian tycoons. So despite its ownership, BP will receive the full amount in the sale.

From Bill White --

Moody's Investors Service gave a relatively strong Aa3 rating to $85.9 million in general obligation bonds the North Slope Borough is planning to sell to investors in about a week.

Moody's, the big New York based bond-rating house, affirmed the same rating on the borough's $400 million in bonds already in the hands of investors.

From Bill White --

Here's some local housing market factoids I gleaned from several sources of information this week:

-- The Anchorage/core Mat-Su mortgage delinquency rate in July was 2.75 percent of loans, according to CoreLogic, which tracks real estate nationwide.

-- That rate was lower than June's 2.89 percent but higher than July 2009's rate of 2.53 percent. A relatively stable rate, in other words. The U.S. delinquency rate in July was 7.81 percent of mortgages, CoreLogic said.

From Bill White --

The Better Business Bureau said it fielded more complaints about hotels than any other business during the July-September quarter. That's amid the tourist season, of course.

The BBB didn't elaborate on the nature of the complaints.

Auto repair and service businesses got the second highest volume of complaints during the three months, the BBB said.

Next was a tie among new car dealers, restaurants and telecom companies.

From Bill White --

Gold prices hit $1,369.50 an ounce today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's the highest I've ever seen them.

How high is that? Here's the gold price on this date since 2003:

Oct. 13, 2003: $374 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2004: $413 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2005: $471 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2006: $589 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2007: $748 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2008: $839 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2009: $1,064 an ounce.
Oct. 13, 2010: $1,369.50 an ounce.

From The Associated Press --

NEW ORLEANS - Conoco Phillips Co. and Sasol North America Inc. have agreed to pay nearly $6.4 million and spend about $10 million more to clean a polluted bayou and settle federal and state environmental claims, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.

The pair of agreements will bring the companies' costs for polluting Bayou Verdine to more than $28 million - they spent $12 million in 2003 to clean up another section of the bayou south of Mossville.

From Bill White --

A subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region Inc. expects to become owner of the old Fireweed Theater site late this month, CIRI said.

The subsidiary, CIRI Land Development Co., is in talks to buy the site from Regal Cinemas, according to CIRI's latest shareholder newsletter.

"CLDC has not settled on final plans for the Fireweed site, but is reviewing potential projects that could include mixed-use office and retail elements," the newsletter says.

From Elizabeth Bluemink--

The Kenai Peninsula Clarion is reporting this afternooon that Chevron plans to sell all of its offshore and land-based oil and gas assets in Cook Inlet.

According to the Clarion:
These include interests in the Granite Point, Middle Ground Shoals, Trading Bay and MacArthur River Fields; interests in 10 offshore platforms; interests in onshore gas fields including the Ninilchik Unit and the Beluga River Unit; and two gas storage facilities.

From Bill White --

Former Arco Alaska chief Kevin Meyers is retiring from Conoco Phillips.

He was head of Arco when BP moved to buy the company in the late 1990s. Then he stayed on with Phillips when that company bought the Alaska assets of Arco from BP. He became a top Phillips exec then a top Conoco Phillips exec.

Here's a post from the latest Petroleum News about Meyers.

From Elizabeth Bluemink--

The Guardian, a British newspaper, is reporting that BP plans to shut down its U.S. ombudsman office after June next year. BP created the office, which investigates whistleblower complaints, after the company’s 2006 spills on the North Slope and a deadly refinery fire in Texas.

From Bill White --

The state Labor Department has a new article out about the "golden" age Alaska's mining industry appears to be in.

The article covers the history, production, jobs in gold, silver, lead and zinc (the state's No. 1 mineral) mining.

Here's a sample of the article:

From Bill White --

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill's plan to try to gut provisions of federal law that have steered billions of dollars in federal contracts to Alaska Native corporations has Native groups fighting back.

Read here the outlines of the plan from McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is a former auditor.

She argues that too little of the money is directly benefitting the Native corporations' shareholders.

From Bill White --

Northern Air Cargo said it is adding a Boeing 737-300 jet to its fleet. The plane will be used in Alaska as well as in the Lower 48 and globally, the Anchorage airline said.

The new jet can carry about 10,000 pounds more freight and is more fuel efficient than the Boeing 737-200 jets that are the core of Northern Air’s fleet, said David Karp, chief executive.

The company said it expects to take delivery of the jet in Anchorage by Nov. 1.

From Bill White --

A couple of new developments involving Native village corporations in the Prince William Sound area.

First, the Tatitlek Corp. said it has acquired GeoNorth, an Anchorage information technology solutions provider specializing in GIS, database management, and Web design and development.

Tatitlek, a Native village corporation based in Anchorage, provides many services including IT-centric professional and technical services, which will be enhanced by the addition of GeoNorth.

From Bill White --

The Alaska Trucking Association has formed a political action committee to help in priority legislative issues facing the industry, particularly transportation funding, said Aves Thompson, executive director.

“The Alaska Trucking Association has priority issues in upgrades and maintenance for the Dalton Highway, Parks Highway weight restrictions elimination projects and statewide highway funding,” Thompson said.