Commerce chief visits Thomas Steel

Commerce chief visits Thomas Steel

WARREN

Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank visited Thomas Steel Strip Corp., and promoted President Barack Obama’s new plan called SelectUSA, aimed at helping foreign investors.

“In order to create all the jobs we need, we have to attract more businesses to our shores and do more to keep great U.S. firms here,” Blank said in a statement.

“That’s why SelectUSA was created. It’s the first governmentwide initiative to attract and retain new business investment — investment such as Tata Steel — and the jobs that come with it, in the United States.”

Thomas Steel, a subsidiary of Tata Steel Europe Group, manufactures cold-rolled strips typically used as steel casings for batteries. It employs about 250 people.

New Aldi opens

BOARDMAN

A new Aldi is open for business at 6600 South Ave.

Hours for the location are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays.

Aldi, a discount-food grocer, has more than 1,100 stores in 31 states, including Mahoning Valley locations in Youngstown, Austintown, Niles and Hermitage, Pa.

GM to cut production of pickup trucks

DETROIT

General Motors Co. is cutting its production of pickup trucks next month, a sign that truck sales aren’t as robust as the company had hoped.

Spokesman Tom Wickham said Thursday that GM canceled five scheduled overtime shifts on Saturdays in September and October. Wickham didn’t know how many vehicles would be involved, but the Flint, Mich., plant where the pickups are made can produce 900 trucks per day.

Full-size pickup truck sales were up 9 percent for the year through July in the U.S., compared with a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp. But that increase was smaller than the industry saw as a whole. Continuing weakness in the housing and construction sectors has dampened demand for trucks. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado, GM’s best-selling truck, were up 7 percent.

GM rehired 750 laid-off autoworkers for a third shift at the Flint plant earlier this month, saying it needed the extra production to keep up with demand for heavy-duty trucks.

US to cut estimate of Marcellus reserves

WASHINGTON

The Energy Department said it will reduce its estimate of undiscovered natural gas in New York, Pennsylvania and other states after a report by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The USGS report estimates that the eight-state Marcellus Shale region contains some 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas. That amount is far higher than the geological service had estimated in a 2002 report, but far below a recent projection by the Energy Department.

The conflicting reports prompted confusion and finger-pointing amid growing questions about the extent of natural-gas reserves available in the Marcellus region, which is in the midst of a drilling boom stretching from New York to West Virginia.

Staff/wire reports