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Chris O'Malley

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A ‘little’ oil boom: More drilling expected in state as prices stay near record

“There is increased drilling. There’s a lot of broke-ass oil producers down here that are experiencing a little boom,” said Andrews, president of Vincennes-based Andrews Oil Properties. Oil producers like Andrews, “still driving the same Cadillac I had 15 years ago,” know bet- ter than to entertain fantasies of striking it rich, however. Indiana oil production has been on the wane since a 12.6-million-barrel peak in 1956. Last year, only 1.75 million barrels were extracted from Indiana’s sedimentary rock, according…

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Givebacks extended:

ATA Holdings Corp. appears to have averted another financial crisis, reaching a tentative agreement with its pilots last week to extend concessions another four months. The Indianapolis airline warned in previous court filings that it was “at the risk of shutdown and liquidation” if U.S. Bankruptcy Court failed to mandate an extension of concessions. Whether the warning was posturing-or a sign of an even more precarious financial situation-is hard to decipher amid ATA’s Chapter 11 reorganization. The proposed pact with…

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Digital TV for the masses: Thomson venture to roll out alternative to HDTV sets at prices ‘Middle America’ should love

People with cars-up-on-blocks in their front yards could afford to buy this digital television. TCL-Thomson Electronics Corp., the Thomson joint venture known as TTE, plans to launch ultra-inexpensive “SDTV” digital sets this fall to aggressively court what some say is an ignored segment of the consumer electronics market. If Bharath Rajagopalan and his colleagues are correct, TTE could get an edge on competitors who’ve been too drunk on profit margins from big, $5,000 plasma screen sets to worry about digital…

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Building trades set for takeoff: Construction companies line up for first set of bids on $300M midfield terminal

The Indianapolis Airport Authority board on May 9 is expected to vote to approve the letting of the first six construction packages. They’re worth a total of $70 million, said Midfield Program Manager John Kish. That’s about a quarter of the $300 million terminal building’s price tag. The $974 million midfield project also includes a new airport entrance at I-70 and Six Points Road. But it’s the terminal building that has broad appeal to the trades. “I’d say this is…

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Demand stokes Coke: After slump, Citizens Gas unit adds workers, expects profit

The bituminous-belching behemoth is as close as this city gets to 19th century industry. It is an anathema to economic strategists who would leave smokestacks behind and recast Indianapolis as a haven for the clean rooms of high- and biotechnology. And neighbors fear it’s the source of elevated levels of benzene and other chemicals blamed for cancer. Yet the politically and environmentally incorrect Indianapolis Coke appears to be on a comeback-at least financially. The subsidiary of Citizens Gas & Coke…

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Airport goes batty on environmental mitigation: Cost of buying new land for bat habitat is triple estimates, on top of $21.6 million spent since early 1990s

The cost of replacing Indiana bat habitat bulldozed to build an Interstate 70 entrance to the midfield airport terminal has tripled from original estimates. The Indianapolis Airport Authority has spent $1.3 million buying new roosting land for the endangered bat, up from a $475,000 estimate published in the Authority’s justreleased annual report. That’s on top of $21.6 million in other environmental mitigation projects at Indianapolis International Airport involving bats and wetlands since the early 1990s. That amount is roughly equivalent…

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The old college try: Struggling IndyGo courting campuses to boost ridership

One solution for a city bus system struggling to lure riders might be academic-get college students on board. The Indianapolis Public Transportation Corp. is in talks with colleges and vocational schools about the potential of discounted fares for students who opt to take the bus to and from campus. The push also has a longer-term goal of conditioning students to use public transportation after they graduate to the work world. Financially sputtering IndyGo, which finished 2004 in the black only…

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IU planning logistics center: University seeks funds for facility to provide services to TDL industry

Indiana University officials say they’re shopping for a site near the airport or in Plainfield for a laboratory to help grow the state’s transportation-distribution-logistics industry-known as TDL. The IU Supply Chain Control Center would evaluate for companies the feasibility and cost benefits of new technologies that could be used to improve sourcing, production and product distribution. The service would be provided at no or little cost. But the center faces a logistics challenge of its own-a delivery of cash. IU…

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With cash tight, ATA trading new planes for old: Smaller version of 737 can be loaded and unloaded more quickly, allowing for more flights per day

Plans by ATA Holdings Corp. to slash its number of aircraft by nearly half include replacing its sleek, new jets with smaller, older Boeing 737s that can fly more trips daily, generating more cash than the larger planes that now dominate its fleet. The Indianapolis-based parent of ATA Airlines wants to lease a dozen 737-300s and 737-500s-relatively stubby planes that date as far back as 1984. Meanwhile, ATA is returning 18 of the 33 Boeing 737-800s it had at the…

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Changes sought in Citizens Gas pipeline project: Industrial customers argue that alliance drives up cost

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility should build a new pipeline to reap cheaper wholesale gas from the West and Canada, but it should ditch its unregulated partner on the project, say industrial customers and the state’s utility consumer watchdog. The Citizens Industrial Group and the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor don’t want Citizens Gas’ ProLiance Energy subsidiary to be involved in certain financing, ownership and management aspects of the proposed $17 million pipeline. They say the joint venture, known as…

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Departure of ATA exec still cloudy: Chief financial officer alleged termination was retaliation

When ATA Holdings Corp.’s chief financial officer “left the company” last June, as management ambiguously put it, many suspected the insider saw bankruptcy looming and wanted to bail out before the crash. David M. Wing, 53, may have seen something else that troubled him, suggests ATA’s most recent financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Wing contends that he was terminated in retaliation for exercising his rights and obligations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” states a settlement agreement Wing…

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Smoking warriors expand battlefield: Health advocates accuse grocers, retailers of misleading public with smoke-free claims

Bars and restaurants aren’t the only firms that will soon feel the heat from health advocates pushing laws to ban smoking in public places. Some are broadening their gaze to drugstores and even supermarkets as potential health risks-and they’re naming names of offending businesses. It’s a radical approach in a mildmannered metro area, where few dare to poke fingers in the eyes of the business or political elite. And it’s in stark contrast to groups such as Smoke Free Indy,…

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Profit potential drives car dealers to risky end of market: Collecting on high-interest, buy-here-pay-here loans requires adept, relentless managers to succeed Management-intensive

A handful of the city’s new-car dealers are cautiously backing into the buy-herepay-here lot, a risky but potentially lucrative used-car business long the bastion of neighborhood lots and chains such as J.D. Byrider Systems. The allure of making in-house loans is interest rates that can top 21 percent and profit margins that can be 10 times higher than peddling fresh metal. While rebates on new cars come and go and make for volatile sales, the poor and those with credit…

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Little jets get the test in Indiana: New aircraft could help small airports shave costs

A top Indiana economist will study whether an emerging class of aircraft known as “very light jets” could fuel an economic boom, especially in the state’s smaller, more isolated communities. Morton J. Marcus, director emeritus of the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University, will gauge the potential impact of VLJs in six communities, including Mount Comfort Airport in Hancock County. Several aircraft makers next year plan to launch the diminutive jets, which can whisk up to six people as…

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ProLiance verdict to cost Citizens: Utility to pay at least $1.5M in fraud case

Citizens Gas & Coke is one of two Indiana utilities burned by a $33.5 million jury verdict, won under a federal racketeering law, against Indianapolis-based Pro-Liance Energy, an unregulated subsidiary of Citizens. The city-owned Citizens has set aside $1.5 million as part of the hit it expects to take for its investment in ProLiance, which procures and manages more than 475 billion cubic feet of natural gas for 1,200 utility and industrial customers in North America. Meanwhile, Evansville-based gas and…

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Chicago Express is not only asset ATA Holdings to jettison: More than $1.7 million for Boeing 727s won’t land in ATA’s pocket

As ATA Holdings Corp. prepares to ditch its Chicago Express commuter line after a tiresome series of low-ball bids, another batch of its aircraft about to be sold won’t fetch much attention-or even a dime-for the Indianapolis carrier. Up to seven of ATA’s former Boeing 727s and as many as 20 engines for the tri-engine aircraft are to be sold by early April for at least $1.7 million, according to documents filed by ATA earlier this month in U.S. District…

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Struggling IndyGo pays big for technology expertise: At $94 an hour, IT director raises some eyebrows

Financially struggling IndyGo is paying a handsome sum to its information technology director, hired to help turn around a city bus system that began 2004 with a $4 million budget deficit. Dale Meyers would earn about $188,000 if he worked 40 hours a week, based on a $94-an-hour employment agreement inked last July. Meyers’ pay would dwarf the $120,000 annual salary of Indy-Go CEO Gilbert Holmes. It’s also salty compared to others’ in his field. The median pay for an…

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Smoke carries economic toll: Ban backers cite health, productivity costs

The annual cost of treating the secondhand-smoke-related illnesses of Marion County residents likely exceeds $16 million, a cost borne partly by businesses that provide their employees health insurance. Businesses also shoulder harder-to-calculate costs in the form of lost productivity and absenteeism, according to a 2002 study for the Marion County Health Department believed to be the best estimate yet of the local impact of cigarettes. But backers of the proposed City-County Council ordinance that would ban smoking in Indianapolis’ bars…

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ATA chief joins list of creditors: Mikelsons’ Betaco files claim for charter helicopter lease

In what burned creditors of ATA Holdings Corp. might savor as a sky-high irony, the chairman of the bankrupt airline himself is holding out his creditors’ cup. George Mikelsons says the parent of ATA Airlines Inc. owes him $179,064 for a helicopter he leased the carrier through his Betaco Inc. firm. His claim was filed Feb. 11 in ATA’s bankruptcy reorganization in U.S. District Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana. It’s one of many unusual claims that have…

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Republic Airways ponders employee concessions: But union complains about ‘disingenuous’ memo

A memo by Republic Airways warns of the need for employee concessions if ailing partner U.S. Airways ceases operations, Teamsters officials said. The union representing 1,000 cockpit crew members and 600 flight attendants at Republic’s Chautauqua Airlines unit has found itself-not the Indianapolis company-on the defensive, however. Union leaders are wrinkled at what they say is a disingenuous memo Republic CEO Bryan Bedford sent to workers about seven weeks ago, alleging that the union has withheld information from pilots and…

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