Gasoline prices dropping again

An increase in crude oil supplies combined with the recovery of U.S. offshore oil production after Hurricane Ivan helped gasoline prices dip nearly 3 cents a gallon over the past two weeks, an industry analyst said Sunday.

Between Nov. 19 and Dec. 3, the national average price for all grades of gasoline dropped to $1.96 a gallon, bringing the total decrease since Oct. 22 to 11 cents per gallon, said analyst Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country from Camarillo, Calif.

As of Dec. 3, the average price at the pump for self-serve regular grade gasoline was $1.93, with mid-grade at $2.03 and premium at $2.12, she said.

New Delhi

Treasury official says U.S. economy to grow

The U.S. economy will expand by 4 percent this year, sustaining the recovery begun in 2002, a senior U.S. Treasury official said Sunday. But he expressed concern about high oil prices and imbalances in the global trading system.

“In the United States, the economy has nearly completed its recovery from the 2000-2001 stock market crash … and it is moving into an expansion phase,” U.S. Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor told a gathering of business executives in New Delhi.

“This year it is on track to complete the third year of recovery with a strong 4 percent growth,” Taylor said.

In the July-September quarter, the U.S. economy expanded by 3.9 percent, compared with 3.7 percent in the previous quarter.

Taylor said the U.S. growth story was not much different from what was happening elsewhere in the world.

Beijing

Nation prioritizes ‘macroeconomic control’

China’s leaders vowed Sunday to sustain steady economic development and control investment in fixed assets in 2005, state media said.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao also reiterated their commitment to strengthening macroeconomic control measures at the close of a three-day conference attended by top-level policy-makers, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The report did not say whether Beijing was any closer to letting the yuan trade freely on world markets.

The topic is of intense interest, especially in the United States, where some manufacturers contend that China’s currency controls undervalue the yuan by as much as 40 percent, giving Chinese exporters an unfair price advantage.

The government “will continue to put macroeconomic control on top of the agenda for next year’s plan in order to maintain a steady and comparatively fast economic development and basically stable prices,” Xinhua said.

Chicago

Aon Corp. CEO ready for investigation

Aon Corp. chairman and CEO Patrick Ryan is fighting to show his company is free from wrongdoing as New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer expands his investigation into questionable insurance industry practices.

Allegations have not been brought against Aon — the world’s second-biggest insurance brokerage and consulting firm behind Marsh & McLennan Cos. — but Spitzer has subpoenaed records.

“I’m very comfortable with our past behavior,” Ryan, 67, told the Chicago Tribune during an interview.

Spitzer filed a civil lawsuit against Marsh & McLennan on Oct. 14, alleging that brokers took payoffs from insurance companies to steer corporate clients their way rather than searching for the best prices as required.