Business Consultant
Disney to base cruise ships in Europe, Miami
The Walt Disney Co.’s cruise line will send one ship back to Europe and try sailing another out of Miami next year, as it spreads out its soon-to-expand cruise fleet.
As expected, the 2013 schedule announced Tuesday for Disney Cruise Line calls for the company’s two newest ships the Disney Dream, which launched in January 2011, and the Disney Fantasy, which begins cruises this March to sail out of Port Canaveral. The ships, each of which can carry approximately 4,000 passengers, will sail a variety of Caribbean and Bahamian itineraries from the Brevard County seaport, Disney Cruise Line’s home base.
Disney will rotate its older ships through a variety of other ports, from Alaska to Venice.
The company’s original ship, the 2,700-passenger Disney Magic, will spend the first five months of 2013 sailing Caribbean voyages out of Galveston, Texas. But that June, it will shift to Europe, where it will spend the summer selling Mediterranean cruises out of Barcelona, Spain.
One of the ship’s ports of call: Civitavecchia, Italy, near Rome.
Major oil refinery to close in US Virgin Islands
ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands — The giant Hovensa oil refinery that has dominated the economy and part of the landscape of the island of St. Croix for decades will cease operations next month, the operator said Wednesday.
The refinery, the largest employer in the U.S. Virgin Islands and once one of the largest refiners in the Western Hemisphere, will shut down and be converted to an oil storage terminal, said Brian K. Lever, president and chief operating officer of Hovensa LLC.
Losses at Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, have totaled $1.3 billion over the past three years and were projected to continue due to reduced demand caused by the global economic slowdown and increased refining capacity in emerging markets, Lever said in a statement.
“We deeply regret the closure of the Hovensa refinery and the impact on our dedicated people,” Lever said.
Geithner in Beijing faces uphill struggle on Iran
BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is visiting Beijing this week looking for support for U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry – but he is likely to be disappointed.
China buys almost one-third of Iran’s oil exports and has rejected the U.S. sanctions as a tool to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program. That sets Washington up for a public setback if the government of the world’s second-largest economy refuses to cooperate.
“China has no reason to go along with this,” said Wang Lian, an Iran expert at Peking University’s School of International Relations. “China does not want to be seen as helping the U.S. when China’s own interest is concerned.”
Geithner was due in Beijing for a dinner meeting Tuesday with Vice Premier Wang Qishan, his counterpart in a regular high-level U.S.-Chinese dialogue. Geithner is to meet Wednesday with Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President Xi Jinping – in line to become China’s next leader – and Vice Premier Li Keqiang, another rising star.
U.S.
Aftershocks are still shaking the insurance sector
After one of the worst years of natural disasters, including storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes and the recent $12 billion flood in Thailand, IAG Australia has completed its reinsurance coverage for 2012. Not surprisingly the costs have ballooned, along with the amount of risk the company has had to take on its own books.
For shareholders, it will mean little – as long as there isn’t a string of mid-sized disasters – as the company reconfirmed an insurance margin of between 10 per cent and 12 per cent for this year. But for customers, the increase in reinsurance costs, estimated to be up to 40 per cent higher, will translate into more rises in insurance premiums.
Being the last of the big insurers to renegotiate its catastrophe reinsurance policy for the year, IAG was always going to face a challenge, particularly given the massive losses endured by global reinsurers over the past few years.
Suncorp, QBE and Wesfarmers have already run the gauntlet and renegotiated their reinsurance policy renewals in June.
Holiday travel: Busier roads, quieter skies this season, AAA says
Nearly one in three Americans is expected to travel for the holidays, making for a slightly more busy travel season compared with a year ago.
About 91.9 million Americans are forecast to travel 50 miles or more from home, up 1.4 percent compared with the 90.7 million people who traveled last year. It marks the highest travel volume since 2006, according to a report released Wednesday by travel club AAA.
AAA called the travel gains a “notable milestone in the travel industry’s recovery.”
In Florida, 4.8 million people are expected to travel during the 11-day holiday period, up 1.2 percent compared with a year ago.
Though the number of people on the roads is expected to grow, air travel is forecast to take a hit this year. AAA forecast about 5.4 million leisure travelers will fly during the year-end holiday period, down 9.7 percent from a year ago.
Northeast states cut heating aid to poor
WASHINGTON — Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can’t afford enough heating oil to stay warm.
She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans.
“I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there,” said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. “I will do what I have to do.”
Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.
“They’re playing Russian roulette with people’s lives,” said John Drew, who heads Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which provides aid to low-income residents in Massachusetts.
The issue could flare just as New Hampshire votes in the Republican presidential primary.
Sen.