E 2   n n  Saturday, August 17, 2013

FYI: BUSINESS

State rig count risesby one to 169 units

The number of drilling rigsactively exploring for oil ornatural gas in Oklahoma roseby one this week to 169, BakerHughes Inc. reported Friday.

The tally is down nearly 15percent from a year ago, whenit was 29 units higher at 198.

Nationwide, the net numberof active drilling rigs hit thehighest level of 2013 this week,rising by 13 to 1,791, accord-ing to data on Houston-basedBaker Hughes’ website. A yearago, the U.S. rig count was1,914.

Of the rigs operating thisweek across the country, 1,397were exploring for oil, 388for gas, and six were listed as

miscellaneous.Friday on the New York

Mercantile Exchange, crude oilfor September delivery gained13 cents to settle at $107.46 abarrel. Oil rose 1.4 percent thisweek.

Natural gas fell 5 cents to$3.37 per 1,000 cubic feet.

—FROM STAFF ANDWIRE REPORTS

OKLAHOMA AGRICULTURE

Oklahomamarkets

The state Departmentof Agriculture

reportedthe following closing pricesFriday.

U.S. No 1 HARDREDWINTER

WHEAT:.05 to .06 lower. 6.43-6.93.Davis6.43, Clinton, Hobart,

Manchester, Shattuck, Weatherford

6.73, Alva, Bualo 6.74, Cherokee6.77, Banner, El Reno, Geary, Medford,

Okarche, Okeene, Ponca City, Watonga

6.78, Perry, Stillwater 6.80, Frederick,Lawton, Temple 6.83, Hooker 6.90,

Eldorado, Keyes6.93, Gulf7.68.

MILO:.14to 1.21 lower. 8.55-9.98.Shattuck8.55, Medford, Ponca City

8.64, Weatherford8.82, Manchester9.36, Alva, Bualo 9.53, Hooker, Keyes9.98.

SOYBEANS:.06 to .07 lower. 12.14-12.44.

Shattuck12.14, Hooker, Medford,Ponca City 12.19, Stillwater 12.24, Alva,Bualo 12.44, Gulf14.14.

CORN:.08 to .33 lower. 4.99-6.24.Medford, Ponca City 4.99, Man-

chester 5.74, Hooker 6.23, Keyes6.24,Gulf5.75.

COTTON:Grade 41, Leaf4, Staple34Cotton in southwestern Oklahomaaveraged88.50 centsper pound.

EGGS:Large 1.31;medium 1.11;small82cents.

Oklahoma active rig countAug.16,2013

S ou rc e: B l oo mb er g S er vi ce s T ul sa W or ld

 

169

+1150

100

200

4th Q 1st Q 2nd Q 3rd Q

2012 2013

Dow average has worst week of ’13

NEW YORK (AP) —Stocks fell Friday, closing out what was the worstweek of the year for theDow Jones industrial aver-age.

The market was draggedlower by a weak perfor-mance from retailersand companies sensitiveto higher interest rates.Homebuilders and banking stocks were among the bestperformers.

Stocks had a decent startto the week, but investorswere hit hard the last threedays. The Dow retreated2.2 percent for the week, itsworst in 2013. The broaderStandard & Poor’s 500 in-dex lost 2.1 percent for theweek, its second-worst per-formance of the year.

The possibility of a cut-back in the Federal Re-serve’s massive bond-buy-ing program in Septemberhas roiled the bond market,which has spilled over intostocks. The yield on thebenchmark U.S. 10-yearTreasury note rose to 2.83percent, its highest levelsince July 2011. A week ago,the yield was 2.58 percent.

“When yields are going up like this, that’s scary formost equity investors,” saidBrian Reynolds, chief mar-ket strategist at RosenblattSecurities.

Rising bond yields havea direct impact on the costof borrowing for everyone,making them a potentiallong-term drag on the econ-omy.

Both sides apparently feelthey’re within reach of vic-tory, which will come in theform of a decision by the U.S.State Department.

Several environmental im-pact reports so far have notfound adverse impacts, de-spite the opposition’s fear of disastrous oil leaks such asthose that occurred on En-bridge pipeline in Michiganthree years ago and on theMayflower line in Arkansasearlier this year.

Those spills, and their $1billion in cleanup costs, arebeing cited by both sides inthe Keystone XL fight.

TransCanada’s Prescottsaid those accidents highlightthe need for the Keystone andother new pipeline projects.

“Those were old pipe-lines, old materials, old tech-niques,” he said. “Things havechanged in the last 50 years.”

One thing giving the op-position greater hope is thatPresident Barack Obama mayhave subtly changed the con-text of the arguments sur-rounding the Keystone XL.The prior concerns focusedon potential for spills anddamage to water systems, buton June 25 he warned that hewill not approve the pipelineif building it would add togreenhouse gas emissions.

“As a president, as a fa-ther, I’m here to say we needto act,” he told a crowd atGeorgetown University. “I re-fuse to condemn your genera-tion and future generations toa planet that’s beyond fixing.”

Obama’s comments strucksome as a change in direction,while others might be a littleunsure of what he meant.

“Most folks would agree hisstatement was vague enoughyou could read what youwant into it,” Prescott said.

David Ocamb, who headsup the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club, said his sidegained enormous comfortfrom Obama’s new bench-mark for the Keystone.

“We’re very optimistic thepresident will make the rightdecision on the Keystone andreject it,” Ocamb said.

The Sierra Club and oth-ers are ramping up their an-ti-Keystone activities whileawaiting the State Depart-ment’s final environmentalimpact report. One of thoseevents will be Sept. 21 inStroud.

Kleeb, up in Nebraska, alsowas happy about where she

saw Obama taking the pipe-line debate.

“That was a significantshift for President Obama,”she said. “Before the only ref-erence was to the Nebraskaroute. This has put the ballin Canada’s court; they don’thave a good track record of controlling greenhouse gas-es.”

Calgary-based TransCan-ada has employed hundredsof people laying down and se-curing the Keystone XL fromCushing to the Gulf, Prescottnoted. The Pipeliners Unionlocal in Tulsa has held nu-merous rallies supporting theproject.

As the southern leg comesto completion, the only ques-

tion that remains is wheth-er federal approval for thenorthern leg is imminent,delayed or will never happen.Prescott argued that Obama’scomments change nothing inthe debate.

“It doesn’t change the factthat every environmentalimpact statement out so farhas been positive,” Prescottsaid. “It doesn’t change thefact that construction (on theXL’s southern leg and a pre-vious, middle portion fromSteele City, Neb., to Cushing)has created thousands andthousands of jobs.”

Pipeline opponents pointout that tar sands oil is sothick and must be dilutedwith a solvent to flow throughpipelines. They said spillssuch as Enbridge’s disasterin the Kalamazoo River wa-tershed in Michigan releaseschemicals, such as benzine,into the atmosphere.

The U.S. imports more oilfrom Canada than any othercountry.

RodWalton918-581-8457rod.walton@tulsaworld.com

fight among themselves.”American’s maintenance

workers, including morethan 4,600 employees inTulsa, will continue to berepresented by the Trans-port Workers Union. Amer-ican has about 6,500 em-ployees overall in Tulsa.

New TWU Local 514President Dale Danker saidthe union is relieved to notface a representation elec-tion, but leadership won’tforget the message sent bythe Teamsters challenge.

“We’ve voted in a wholeslate of new ocers, sowe believe the local mem-bership has spoken loud,”Danker said, referring tolocal elections held in July.“We want to do a better jobgetting out there and speak-ing to workers here.”

Danker said the relation-ship with American Airlinesleadership is still rocky andthat the delay caused by theJustice Department law-suit only pushes back thechangeover in the airline’sleadership.

The Teamsters startedcollecting signatures atAmerican in July 2012, eightmonths after parent com-pany AMR Corp. filed bank-ruptcy. The bankruptcy seto bitter contract renegotia-tions with the TWU, forcing concessions that includedthe freezing of all pensions.However, the union didmanage to secure pay raisesas part of the deal.

Those negotiations andconcessions stirred discon-tent among many unionmembers, inviting theTeamsters — as well as theAircraft Mechanics Frater-nal Association — to try tobecome the bargaining agentfor American’s mechanicsand related workers.

The Teamsters said it hascollected more than 6,000signatures and submittedthem to the National Me-diation Board in May.

The federal labor agencyhas not given a determina-tion on those signatures.

The Teamsters needed sig-natures from a majority of all American maintenanceworkers to force a vote onrepresentation.

AMFA failed to submitits signatures in time forconsideration, according toNational Mediation Boarddocuments.

The TWU had accusedthe Teamsters of submit-ting fraudulent signaturesto the National MediationBoard. The Teamsters with-drawal presumably haltsthe release of any informa-tion from the board on thenumber of valid signaturescollected or the forgery al-legations.

“We’re pleased that theTeamsters realized thatthis raid of TWU membersat American Airlines wasboth wasteful and divisive,”said TWU President JimLittle in a statement. “Nowthat we do not have the dis-traction of an unnecessarycampaign among alreadyorganized workers, we canredouble our e orts on bat-tling the Department of Justice’s unjustified legalchallenge to the proposedmerger of American Air-lines and US Airways.”

The TWU’s standing atAmerican Airlines is safefor now. Labor rules pro-hibit another union to sub-mit a challenge for at leastone year.

The TWU and the IAM atUS Airways have an agree-ment to jointly representworkers if American andUS Airways are allowed tomerge.

The Teamsters also nar-rowly lost a bid to representworkers at US Airways lastweek.

American Airlines andparent AMR Corp. havebeen in bankruptcy sinceNov. 29, 2011. In a hearing Thursday, U.S. BankruptcyJudge Sean Lane declinedto rule on the company’s re-organization plan until hecould get more informationabout how the Justice De-partment’s lawsuit wouldimpact the companies.

KyleArnold 918-581-8380kyle.arnold@tulsaworld.com

UNIONFROM E1

For instance, the average an-nual percentage yield on aone-year CD in Tulsa was0.29 percent compared to0.27 percent for the nation. Atwo-year CD yielded an aver-age APY of 0.54 percent ver-sus 0.43 percent nationwide.

Although Tulsa’s averageCD rates outperformed thenation, they fell below the av-erage for Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s average annualpercentage yield on one-yearand two-year CDs was 0.40percent and 0.66 percent, re-spectively.

“While CD rates all acrossthe U.S. remain low and me-

dian family net worth hasplummeted by approximately38.8 percent since 2007, cer-tificates of deposits are still arelatively safe place to storeyour savings,” said AmandaGarcia, local banking expertfor GoBankingRates.com,in a statement. “What Tulsadepositors need to realize isthat they could potentiallymaximize their interest gainsby opening CDs with banks orcredit unions in other parts of the state.”

According to the report,TTCU The Credit Union, for-merly known as Tulsa Teach-ers Credit Union, locallywas among those o ering the highest CD rates. Its six-month CD rate of 0.65 per-cent was the highest, whileits two-year CD rate of 1 per-

cent was the highest along with Communication FederalCredit Union.

TTCU’s one-year CDrate of 0.70 percent slightlytrailed that of Communica-tion Federal, which had a 0.75percent rate.

“We look at a varietyof characteristics and, of course, competition is one,”said Doug Aldrich, execu-tive vice president of TTCUThe Credit Union. “We con-tinue to set them based onthe needs of the credit unionitself. Are we in need of de-posits? Are we making moreloans? What do we need to doto bring in funds, and how dowe retain it?”

The credit union also o ersa rewards dividend programwhereby depositors of di er-

ent levels can receive a quar-terly dividend in addition tothe flat rate.

The Federal Reserve haskept interest rates low as away to get people and theeconomy going again. Butthere are signs that the Fedmay be shifting its policy, Al-drich said, noting that rateson the 10-year Treasury billand longer-term rates are ris-ing slightly.

“They have wanted andhave been successful in keep-ing rates low,” he said. “Theymay be easing up on some of that. Of course, when you seeyour deposit rates go up, youalso see your loan rates goup.”

LaurieWinslow 918-581-8466laurie.winslow@tulsaworld.com

with the rest of the body andmakes the phone just slightlyuncomfortable to hold.

The Windows Phone op-erating system doesn’t varymuch from model to model,and that’s still the case here. You’ll get the same animatedlive tiles that automaticallygive you new information orshift through photos on yourphone or social networks.

Everything runs smoothly,web pages pop up quicklyand apps run without a hintof hitching or slowdown. It’sa solid phone. But that’s notwhat I’m here to write about.

The phone not only sportsa beefier camera, it has photosoftware more advancedthan the stock WindowsPhone app. The Nokia ProCam app gives you tightercontrol over things like whitebalance, shutter speed andother options you’d usu-ally find in cameras moreadvanced than point-and-shoot. Despite the addedcomplexity, the single swipemenu for all the options waseasy to use. Yes, you can set everything 

to automatic if you’d like,

and you can even still use thestock Windows Phone cam-era app if you’d like — butit only takes pictures withabout 5 megapixels.

I asked World PhotoEditor Christopher Smithwhat he thought about thecamera’s capabilities, and hewas floored by the amount of details it produces. You canzoom into pictures almostendlessly and they’ll stillhave an incredible amountof detail. Even the pictures Itook with the camera lookedgreat, and I’m a horrible shot. Yet he felt the general tone

of the pictures wasn’t quiteas strong as a dedicated SLR 

camera. Keep in mind thatmodern cameras are aboutmuch more than megapixels.There’s a number of fac-tors, such as light processing capabilities and software,that can have a bigger e ecton photo quality than justmegapixels.

Despite the somewhatless-than-SLR quality, theshots the Lumia 1020 pro-duced were vastly better thananything Smith had seen on asmartphone before.

The system has somequirks, though. Every pictureyou take produces two files —a 5-megapixel version and a41-megapixel version. If you

choose to email a photo orshare it on social networks,the phone will send out thelower-resolution version, andI wasn’t able to find a way tosend out the bigger file.

The camera can zoom in abit, but not by much — eventhe iPhone can zoom inmuch farther than the 1020.That’s an odd omission for acamera with detail to spare.

Finally, the panoramafunction is almost completelyworthless. You have to clickthe screen, wait for the cam-era to get ready and then panit slightly to the right — andonly the right — to a targetdot, then wait for the phoneto get ready to do it again.

The result is a weirdlyconnected, low-res messthat doesn’t match what theiPhone and other panorama-enabled smartphones can do.And that’s assuming you caneven get it to work. Two outof three times I got a “Whereare you?” error warning thatcommanded me to try to aimthe phone exactly where Ihad it at the start.

But no matter. Even withthe quirks, the Lumia 1020takes better photos than anyother smartphone on themarket, and it nearly match-es the performance of typicalSLRs at half the p rice.

LUMIA FROM E1

The Lumia 1020 produces impressive photos with its 41-mega-pixel camera.  CHRISTOPHERSMITH/Tulsa World

CDFROM E1

 

Keystone XL timelineMarch 2011: Pipeline’s leg from Steele City, Neb., to Cushingbecomes operational.November 2011: President Barack Obama delays decision onnorthern Keystone XL leg due to environmental concerns.March 2012: Obama visits pipe yard in Ripley, near Stillwater,

and touts recent drilling success and future needs.July 2012: Keystone’s southern leg from Cushing to Gulf Coast

approved by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.November 2012: TransCanada begins work on Oklahoma portion

of southern leg.January: Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approves new route

around Sand Hills. Northern leg still needs federal approval.June: Obama speech ties decision on Keystone XL to whether it

increases greenhouse gas emissions.Late summer 2013: Completion of southern leg’s construction is

projected. Testing and line fill to follow.End of 2013: TransCanada hopes southern leg will be opera-

tional.

OILFROM E1

Jim Prescott of TransCanada Corp. uses a map to explain intricacies of the Keystone XL pipelineproject to people touring a construction site earlier this year in Prague.  

MICHAELWYKE/Tulsa Worldfile