PENNSYLVANIA

PENNSYLVANIA
Steel prices to rise
PITTSBURGH -- While U.S. steel prices declined slightly last month, prices are expected to increase early next year, fueled by strong demand in China and elsewhere and scarcity of raw materials.
Analysts see no sign of demand abating anytime soon.
China is in the midst of an industrial revolution and can't produce enough steel -- a condition that's expected to last at least through 2005, said Nancy Gravatt, a spokeswoman at the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Michael Locker, a New York steel industry analyst, said China's "insatiable appetite" for steel is responsible for much of the increase.
China more than doubled the amount of steel it imports over the past several years to about 250 million tons annually and is expected to import as much as 300 million tons annually in the next several years, Gravatt said.
"It's just skyrocketing," she said.
NATION
Oil futures prices up
Crude oil futures prices rose Wednesday amid concerns about tight heating oil supplies and fears that OPEC could rein in output when it meets later this week.
Light sweet crude for January delivery was up 48 cents to $41.94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude futures climbed 42 cents to $38.69 per barrel. Despite a sharp pullback recently, oil prices are roughly 30 percent higher than a year ago.
While the Energy Department reported rising U.S. inventories of crude oil and distillate fuel, the supply of distillate, which includes heating oil, remains 12 percent lower than a year ago and that leaves the country vulnerable in the event of a colder-than-normal winter.
Heating oil futures jumped 3.63 cents to $1.2599 per gallon on Nymex, where they are trading roughly 40 percent above year ago levels.
Drug data site launched
INDIANAPOLIS -- Eli Lilly & amp; Co. debuted a Web site Wednesday for clinical trial data on its prescription drugs, including Prozac and its new anti-depressant, Cymbalta.
The Web site www.lillytrials.com went up with data from more than 40 Phase I through Phase IV clinical trials of Lilly drugs already on the market, including four for Cymbalta and five for Prozac.
In addition to clinical trial data for drugs already approved, Lilly will post on the Web details on the start of all the Phase Two through Phase Four clinical trials that it sponsors, the company said in a news release.
The Web site now has nearly half of the data the company has committed to making publicly available, Lilly said. It expects to have all the data on the site by July. Some trials have been completed but Lilly is not disclosing the data yet while they await publication in scientific journals.
Dollar up against yen, euro
NEW YORK -- The dollar rose Wednesday against the Japanese yen and the euro, driven up sharply amid concerns about possible intervention by Japanese financial authorities after the government there released weak economic growth data.
In late trading in New York, the dollar was quoted at 104.04 yen, up from 102.84 late Tuesday. The dollar hit 104.99 yen earlier in the day.
The Japanese government announced that its economy grew 0.2 percent on an annual basis in the July-September period from the previous quarter, down from the preliminary figure of 0.3 percent, reinforcing recent signs that Japan's recovery may be stalling.
The dollar also strengthened against the euro, which on Tuesday hit an all-time high of $1.3470 amid concerns over the U.S. trade and budget deficits and weak U.S. economic data. In late trading in New York, the euro traded at $1.3335, down from $1.3432 late Tuesday but above its intraday low of $1.3193.
WORLD
VW boosts production
MEXICO CITY -- German auto giant Volkswagen AG said it would produce 320,000 cars at its central Mexican plant in 2005, about 39 percent more than this year, to capitalize on the weaker dollar.
Hurt by slow sales in the United States, Volkswagen's Mexican arm produced 20 percent fewer autos this year than in 2003, when its plant outside the colonial city of Puebla built 287,000 units, Thomas Karig, Volkswagen's cooperate relations director, said Wednesday.
The company's new Jetta, which will be sold as the Bora model in Mexico, will be produced in a new wing of the Puebla operations, where workers will assemble parts arriving from Brazil, Karig told foreign reporters.
Production of the overhauled Jetta will account for 200,000 of the cars the Puebla plant will produce in 2005, he said.
The Puebla operation, Volkswagen's only North American factory, employs about 13,300 workers and is also the only place where the new Beetle sedan and convertible are built. About 70 percent of production is exported.
Associated Press