Supply side: Georgia-based Southwire Co.’s Project GIFT will host a supply distribution event at the Home Depot parking lot on Coursey Boulevard from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The company, a manufacturer of building wire and cable, founded Project GIFT, a nonprofit volunteer organization, in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Project GIFT coordinator Kristian C. Whittington, Southwire’s manager of employee engagement and communication, says many of the company’s employees have family in Louisiana who have been displaced by flooding. Project GIFT will hand out paper goods, cleaning supplies, nonperishable food, baby items, personal hygiene products, ice chests and other items. More information on Project GIFT’s distribution event can be found on Facebook.
Changing hands: Houston-based Phillips 66 has announced that it has reached an agreement with Chevron to acquire a natural gas liquids logistics system in south Louisiana. The system includes approximately 500 miles of pipelines and a storage cavern connecting multiple fractionation facilities, refineries and a petrochemical facility, according to a news release. The acquisition includes the approximately 300-mile TENDS Pipeline System, the roughly 200-mile VP Pipeline/EP Pipeline, and a salt-dome cavern called Sorrento Cavern in Ascension Parish. Tim Taylor, Phillips 66 Partners president, says the acquisition will expand the partnership’s NGL footprint into the Louisiana market. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016 pending regulatory approvals. Read the full release.
Slower than expected: U.S. economic growth was a bit more sluggish than initially thought in the second quarter as businesses aggressively ran down stocks of unsold goods, offsetting a spurt in consumer spending. As Reuters reports, gross domestic product expanded at a 1.1% annual rate, the Commerce Department says today in its second estimate of GDP. That was slightly down from the 1.2% rate it reported last month. The revision, which was in line with economists’ expectations, also reflected more imports than previously estimated as well as weak spending by state and local governments. The economy grew at a 0.8% pace in the first quarter. It grew 1% in the first half of 2016. Reuters has the full story.
