Texas. The development of natural gas resources from around the world will play an important role in the future global economy, Tom Walters, president of ExxonMobil Gas & Power Marketing Company, said today at a plenary session during the CERAWeek 2010 conference in Houston, Texas: “We expect global energy demand to increase nearly 30 percent in the next 20 years. By 2030, global gas demand will be around 140 billion cubic feet per day higher than 2009.”

Read more...

Texas. At a recent Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference, Exxon executive Tom Walters made it unflinchingly clear that his company believes natural gas is in for a long-term growth phase in North America.

Read more...

Total construction spending dropped 0.6% in January. This is the net of the still slowly declining trend in overall construction spending, a second month of unseasonably bad construction weather and the usual monthly flip-flop in residential remodeling spending, this time a large increase. Currently the underlying declining trend is likely less than 0.6%/month, probably 0.3-0.5%/month. Later data revisions may restore this trend to the reported data for the last few months, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

The 0.5% January partially reverses a small gain in December. Heavy construction spending is now 3.2% below the stimulus boosted September level. As expected, the stimulus plan is not enough to offset the growing weakness in state and local government financial positions and the refusal of Congress to find a permanent source of funds for the federal highway program, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

The monthly drop in January from December was 2.1%. Spending for every type of project declined except for a marginal increase for amusement and recreation. The largest declines were 11% for hotels and 5% for manufacturing. This pattern is consistent with a negative weather impact which is also seen in the 75,000 construction layoffs in January, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

Single family construction spending was unchanged in January. This continuing stall after the mid-2009 pickup is due both to bad weather and the timing of the on-off-on down-payment subsidy. Nonetheless, the underlying trend is still modest growth, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

The new home market has stabilized over the last nine months at a depressed level, about one-third of the underlying demographic demand for new homes. The inventory of new homes for sale is largely unchanged in the last three months confirming that the current level of housing starts is sustainable at the current inventory level, says Reed Construction Data chief economist Jim Haughey.

Given that, among the 50 largest metro areas in the country,  Washington D.C. has the second lowest unemployment rate and the second highest rate of employment growth, it arguably has the strongest economy in the country.

From one month to the next, the whole world keeps hoping that the U.S. labor market will improve. It’s not impossible for gross domestic product growth to occur in what is still the world’s largest economy without an increase in jobs, but it is certainly more of a challenge. February was one more month of disappointment –  and one more month of the “jobless recovery” – according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between the first and second months of 2010, the net change in employment was -36,000 jobs. While this is an almost insignificant figure,  given a total…

RSMeans’  Construction Cost Index for 30 major cities remained under wraps for the latest reporting period, January 2010. The year-over-year change was negligible at only -0.5%. The quarter-to-quarter change annualized was +1.3%. The sharpest quarter-to-quarter annualized decline in the index was most recently recorded in April 2009 at -7.9%. The greatest quarter-to-quarter annualized increase in the index occurred in July 2008 at +18.5%. July 2008 was when world oil prices were at their all-time peak as they climbed in excess of 0 USD per barrel.  The outlook for construction costs depends on market demand and commodity prices.