Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130135
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
IN BUSINESS
Va. firm to research double-hull oil shipsPHILADELPHIA - The Pentagon has awarded a Virginia company $3 million to do research on double-hull oil tankers that could eventually bring shipbuilding back to the Philadelphia region.
Richard Goldbach, president of Metro Machine Corp. of Norfolk, said the contract would help advance manufacturing techniques for the double-hull design.
The vessel is expected to compete with tankers made in Japan and Korea, which dominate shipbuilding, Goldbach said.
The world's oil fleet will shift to double-hull tankers in the next two decades as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Goldbach said the Marc Guardian would have prevented the even-larger spill in the Shetland Islands last week when the single-hull Braer ran aground.
Savings-bond sales break 48-year record
WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department sold $17.7 billion in U.S. savings bonds in 1992, breaking a 48-year-old record set during World War II.
The latest sales total compares with $12.4 billion sold in 1944, the old record, and roughly $9.5 billion in 1991.
Plummeting interest rates on other types of government-guaranteed investments available to small savers - primarily bank certificates of deposit - have been the driving force behind rising savings bond sales this year.
December sales were $1.71 billion, down 23 percent from $2.22 billion in November but up 97 percent from $870 million in December 1991.
The value of savings bonds held at the end of December was $157.3 billion, up from $138.1 billion a year earlier.