Petroleum

Crown Central Petroleum Corp. announced yesterday that it posted its fourth consecutive quarterly loss because of continuing slack demand and a drop in crude oil prices in June.The Baltimore-based refiner and marketer said that during the second quarter it lost $2.3 million on sales of $448 million, down from a $2.6 million profit on sales of $459 million in the same period of 1992.Crown spokesman Joseph M. Coale said that although refinery operations have been hurt by the poor economy, advertising and promotion programs boosted sales at Crown's gas stations and convenience stores by 8 percent over last year.

VERACRUZ, Mexico -- For two years, Mexico has worked with other oil-producing nations to lift prices, and their efforts have borne fruit. But in an about-face, senior Mexican officials are now trying to talk prices down. The problem is that lofty oil prices conflict with Mexico's new economy, which is propelled by exports of cars, televisions and other manufactured goods. "Mexico is now so integrated into the U.S. economy that it's no longer in Mexico's interest to rock the boat on oil prices," said Eduardo Lopez, a Mexican who is an analyst at Petroleum Finance Corp.

Market opens with a little gainThe stock market eked out a small gain today in quiet late-summer trading.The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials inched ahead 0.81 to 3,267.07 in the first half hour of trading. Gainers outpaced losers by about 7 to 6 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 590 up, 516 down and 682 unchanged. Big Board volume came to 22.77 million shares as of 10 a.m. on Wall Street.Analysts said investors were cautiously watching the dollar as it touched new post-World War II lows against the German mark.

Bell Atlantic merger off againBell Atlantic Corp., Tele-Communications Inc. and Liberty Corp., still divided on specific terms of their $21.4 billion merger, signaled yesterday that they will push back the signing of a definitive agreement for the third time in three months.Under a letter of intent, Bell Atlantic said it would give TCI shareholders 220 million Class B shares. But since the day the three companies signed a letter of intent to merge in October, Bell Atlantic's shares have fallen 17 percent.

Entrepreneurial training for farmers The Howard County Economic Development Authority will offer the NxLevel, five-week entrepreneurial training course for farmers, "Tilling the Soil of Opportunity." The course is geared to agricultural entrepreneurs who have started or are considering an agriculture-based venture not tied to large-scale, commodity-style production and are searching for innovative ideas and marketing opportunities. The program, which includes 10 topics, includes lectures, discussions, speakers, networking opportunities and instructor consultations.

As part of a strategy to expand its oil storage operations, Maritrans Inc. of Philadelphia has bought a 530,000-barrel petroleum product terminal in South Baltimore from Mobil Oil Corp.Terms of the sale were not disclosed.The purchase of the terminal on Fairfield Road, which was completed Friday but announced yesterday, is part of the barge company's plan to provide additional oil storage services to its customers."One of our strategies is to offer our customers a bundling of services where we would transport the petroleum and store it for them," said Richard Carson, a Maritrans spokesman.

Sihung Lung, 72, the Taiwanese actor who had pivotal roles in director Ang Lee's well-regarded "Father Knows Best" trilogy of films, died of liver failure May 2 in Taipei. Mr. Lung also appeared in Mr. Lee's Academy Award-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and acted in more than 100 Chinese-language films. Born in a village in mainland China, Mr. Lung completed his secondary-school education and joined the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-shek as a teen-ager. He fled to Taiwan in 1949 in the face of the Communist victory in the civil war. While in his 20s, he started his acting career in an army theater group in Taipei.

GROZNY, Russia - Oil-stained Movsar Muzayev looks his visitors over closely and then gestures for them to follow him to a trash heap at the back of his house, overlooking the smoke-gray Sunzha River. He kicks aside a few garbage bags and lifts a scrap of sheet metal to reveal a cylindrical steel boiler about the size of a small car buried in the riverbank. From it protrudes a Rube Goldberg agglomeration of pipes and tubes. Beneath the tank burns a carefully tended fire. Next, he points to a hose that emerges from the contraption, disappears into the river and re-emerges on the riverbank, where it runs into a steel drum a few yards away.

DALLAS -- Oil prices bounded yesterday to their highest levels in a year as OPEC vowed not to boost crude production this year and a report showed that stockpiles had fallen in the United States.Crude oil for July delivery rose 91 cents, to $19.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, continuing an advance from the $14 range in March.Analysts also pointed to fears of a Korean confrontation with the West over nuclear weapons, and fresh signs that no oil would soon be flowing from Iraq.

Despite the sharp drop in the stock market, the chairman of Adams Express Co., said yesterday that values of many companies still remain high and could fall even farther. Douglas G. Ober, chairman and chief executive of the Baltimore investment company, told shareholders that the average Standard & Poor's 500 stock is still richly valued and trades at 22 times its earnings per share. "The market could go substantially lower," said Ober, who spoke to shareholders at the Radisson Hotel at Cross Keys.