St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page C001

CC KK YY MM PPAAGGEE CC0011PPDD11FFNN00992288 Some of us have been breathing a sigh of relief each time we drive past the gas station and see a price starting with Before Hurricane Rita slammed the Gulf Coast over the weekend, many energy experts thought the digit would quickly become or Since we had paid $3.29 a gallon for gasoline after Hurricane Katrina, the prediction seemed believable. But when Rita caused less damage than had been feared in Houston, home to the biggest concentration of we seemed to have avoided the worst-case scenario. Retail gasoline prices here jumped about 20 cents just before the storm and another 20 cents this week. As of Tuesday, St. Louisans were paying about $2.89 a gallon, well below the peak Katrina level.

Even so, those sighs of relief are premature. Rita knocked out seven in Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, which collectively make about 10 percent of the fuel. likely to be out of production for a month. When you add in four re- that still reopened after Hurricane Katrina, currently missing about 15 percent of re- capacity. The industry was operating at full tilt, using 97 percent of its capacity, before the storms.

never had this much capacity out for this length of says William an energy analyst at A.G. Edwards Sons. more, Rita shut down the Explorer Pipeline, an important source of fuel for the Midwest, for days. In this tale of two storms, Rita may pinch our pocketbooks more than its predecessor did. one, I think anybody knew how to said Jim Forsyth, president of the Belleville-based Mo- toMart chain of convenience stores.

price went up quickly and then it came down quickly. This one you had a little more time to prepare for, but the long-term consequences are worse. This one, prices may slowly go up and stay Juli Niemann, who follows energy stocks at R.T. Jones Capital Equities in Clayton, also thinks gasoline prices peaked yet. think $3 is in our future for a long she said.

If nothing else, this storms have focused attention on the perhaps the least glamorous part of the oil supply chain. The energy bill that Congress passed this summer was a mix of conservation measures and incentives for drillers, but did little about our capacity problem in Not only are our dangerously concentrated on the Gulf Coast, but no new one has been built in this country since 1976. partly be- cause of tough environmental restrictions, and partly because very in the 1980s and 1990s. Some members of Congress have introduced bills that would ease the environmental rules, and President George W. Bush has mentioned the possibility of building a on an old military base.

Such a project would take at least years, estimates. An expansion of an existing plant could be done more quickly. Motiva is considering an investment that would double the size of its Port Arthur That capacity, of course, would still be at risk during the next big storm. Meanwhile, the president is telling us that we need to conserve energy. Thanks, George, but the high prices have already delivered that message.

COME BACK TOMORROW Doctoring TV a Web site for doctors, goes live Friday with a stenting procedure at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Business One-two punch puts spotlight on DAVID NICKLAUS WEDNESDAY SEPTMEBER 28, 2005 SECTIONC Business TOP NEWS BIG PAYOFF ATESSI Chairman and two top executives at Engineered Support Systems Inc. could collect a combined $8.6 million if acquisition goes through. C3 INSIDE SBC WINS Missouri agree with phone argument that pricing regulations are no longer necessary in 21 exchange areas, including St. Louis.

C2 GROUND BROKEN Developer begins work on project in Bottle District of downtown St. Louis that will include restaurants, retail and residential tower. C2 BUYERSLACKING Existing home sales may have taken off in August, but home builders report that sales of new houses fell sharply. C3 IN BRIEF NO FREE CHECK Delphi Corp. CEO Steve Miller Jr.

wants to stop paying union employees when not working. Miller has threatened to take the automobile parts U.S. operations into bankruptcy before Oct. 17 if he get concessions from the United Auto Workers. TICKETS PLEASE Riding the rails just got more expensive.

Amtrak says ticket prices nationwide will increase an average of $3 to $4 starting next Tuesday as the passenger rail system tries to cover increases in current and anticipated expenses, including the cost of fuel, which has risen 40 percent in the past year. 1 ONLINE STRESSED OUT BY YOUR BOSS? Take a coffee and read up on a safe Web site where you can vent. Find this and other fun sites from the Virtual Coffee Break link at STLto- day.com/business. DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS 10,456.21 NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,116.42 STANDARD 500 1,215.66 BLOOMBERG ST. LOUIS 501.00 MARKETS By Jeffrey Tomich ST.

LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Conoco Phillips said it delay a 1 1 2 -month-long maintenance outage at its Wood River a key supplier of fuel to the St. Louis area, despite urging by President George W. Bush and other elected that oil put off such projects. The Houston-based oil company said it will shut two units at the plant on Thursday. The project will cut gasoline production by about 20 percent, 30,000 barrels a day, but affect diesel or jet-fuel production, spokeswoman Melissa Erker said.

ConocoPhillips had pushed back the start after Hurricane Katrina sent the average nationwide price of gasoline soaring above $3 a gallon. But the company said further delays could jeopardize safety. we could push this back we Erker said. Normally, routine refinery maintenance cause concern about prices and supplies. But two major hurricanes in less than a month struck a major blow to Gulf Coast oil plat- forms, refineries and pipelines, further aggravating tight energy markets.

The project at Wood River, the 10th largest refinery, could be especially significant to St. Louis. Work is to begin the same day that a key pipeline that supplies the metropolitan area and elsewhere in the Midwest is to resume gasoline deliveries after being closed for a week. The Explorer Pipeline between Lake Charles, and Hammond, was shut to allow workers time to evacuate before Hurricane Rita. It partially re-opened Monday, but some major that rely on Explorer to transport fuel to the Midwest are still down.

Motiva Enterprises LLC said its 275,000 barrel-a-day in Port Arthur, Texas, sustained wind damage and no start-up date was given. Valero Energy 250,000 barrel-a- day there suffered damage and expected to resume even partial operation for two weeks, the company said. And Citgo Petro- leum 324,000 barrel-a- day Lake Charles plant remains without electricity. Bush said on Monday that Americans should conserve fuel and asked oil companies to put off maintenance for four to six weeks, unless doing so compromised safety. Sen.

Barack Obama, sent ConocoPhillips Chief Executive James Mulva a letter on Monday with a similar request. shutdown could exacerbate the problems with reduced the letter said. ConocoPhillips shares Oba- concerns, Erker said. But Wood River trims Obama Seeks a delay By Gregory Cancelada ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Jim Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is asking Anheuser-Busch Cos.

to step in and help settle a four-month-old labor dispute between the union and Lohr Distributing the distributor of AB products in the city of St. Louis. With the strike entering its 19th week, the Teamsters union is urging the largest brewer to get involved, Hoffa said Tuesday at a news conference. He was attending a meeting of labor leaders in St. Louis.

basically dialoguing with (Anheuser-Busch) and hopefully we can get this Hoffa said. get this strike settled. I think that is what everyone in St. Louis However, Anheuser-Busch repeated earlier statements that Lohr is an independent operation and the brewer involved in the daily operations. The brewer added that the dispute is between the Teamsters and Lohr.

Lohr executives be reached for comment. Two dozen drivers and a dozen part-time workers represented by Teamsters Local 600 struck the Hoffa wants A-B to get involved in Lohr strike Jim Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, addresses members of the Change to Win coalition during its convention in St. Louis Tuesday. James A. Finley The Associated Press Aida Basic (right), who opened the Galleria with money she earned as an interpreter in Bosnia, talks Tuesday morning with customers Suvad Duderija (left) and Safet Vehabovic at the coffeehouse at 6203 Gravois Avenue.

Robert Cohen Post-Dispatch Starting something By Shera Dalin ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Latinos and immigrants start companies at higher rates than white non-Latinos, while blacks increasingly are jumping into business ownership, a new study Among other findings of the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity: 550,000 businesses launch each month nationally an average of 0.36 percent of the adult population. That rate has remained roughly unchanged over the study period, 1996 to 2004. This is the study to measure business starts among all adults in the U.S., including those who are self-employed, said its author, Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The data, issued by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, give a broader look into microbusinesses than U.S.

Census capture. (the) data are correct we are losing thousands of businesses a year, or that there is a lot larger underground than estimated, Jerome A. Katz, entrepreneurship professor at St. Louis University, said Tuesday. Two surprising results emerged from the study, Fairlie said.

The number of Latinos who started businesses jumped to 0.48 percent of the adult population last year from 0.38 percent in 1996 greater than the 0.39 percent rate for white non-Latinos. And immigrants have substantially higher entrepreneurship rates than U.S. natives 0.46 percent compared with 0.35 percent. Among them is Aida Basic, owner of the Galleria coffeehouse at 6203 Gravois Avenue in St. Louis.

Although Basic, 25, was born in the U.S., she grew up in Yugoslavia until, as a teenager, civil war forced her and her mother to to St. Louis. After Basic graduated from Lake Forest College near Chicago with degrees in English and political science, she and her mother bought the building on Gravois. She considered turning it into space, but decided instead to make it a coffeehouse. But Basic first worked several years as an interpreter for the U.S.

military in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and PLEASE SEE REFINERY C6 PLEASE SEE HOFFA C6 PLEASE SEE STARTUP C6 THEGOOD Immigrants and Latinos are becoming entrepreneurs at an increasing rate THEBAD A high number of new businesses indicates an increased number of failures ConocoPhillips delay maintenance despite Bush urging..