Chesapeake gets Columbiana well pad
Chesapeake gets Columbiana well pad
LISBON
The first horizontal-well pad issued in Columbiana County in three months went to Chesapeake Exploration.
There now are 74 well pads in the county, with 98 permitted wells. Forty-six of those wells are drilled, and 10 are producing.
For its part, Chesapeake announced Thursday that it was included on Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For,” for the seventh-consecutive year.
Yuengling ice cream returning in Feb.
The first batches of Yuengling’s Ice Cream came off the production line Thursday, and they are getting ready to hit stores, the Orwigsburg, Pa.-based company announced.
The company hasn’t produced ice cream in 28 years, but it will start delivering its 10 flavors to grocery stores in Pennsylvania and other states in February.
Best Buy sales drop, shares skid
MINNEAPOLIS
Best Buy said Thursday it had disappointing sales during the holiday shopping season, raising concerns about the consumer-electronic retailer’s ability to turn around its business.
Shares tumbled nearly 29 percent on the news, showing that investors increasingly are worried about Best Buy’s future. Best Buy’s stock price had more than quadrupled last year but had been down 7 percent since the beginning of this year.
Best Buy was struggling even before the holiday season because of increased competition from online stores, notably Amazon.com, and discounters such as Wal-Mart. But under CEO Hubert Joly, Best Buy started a turnaround strategy that included revamping merchandise, training employees and cutting costs.
Best Buy went into the holiday season saying that it was unafraid of so-called “showrooming,” when consumers check out items in stores and then purchase them for less online. It also said it would match prices of all retailers, including cheaper online rivals, but that policy ultimately led to an unexpected sales decline.
Airfares increase 12% since 2009
The price to board an airliner in the United States has risen for the fourth-straight year, making it increasingly expensive to fly almost anywhere.
The average domestic round-trip ticket, including tax, reached $363.42 last year, up more than $7 from the prior year, according to an Associated Press analysis of travel data collected from millions of flights throughout the country.
The 2 percent increase outpaced inflation, which stood at 1.5 percent.
Airfares have risen nearly 12 percent since their low in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, when adjusted for inflation, the analysis showed.
Ticket prices have increased as airlines eliminated unprofitable routes, packed more passengers into planes and merged with one another, providing travelers with fewer options.
Vindicator staff/wire reports