Cardinal reclaims top spot in state
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — President Donald Trump says withdrawing from a global climate change agreement will boost the U.S. economy, but existing market forces have had far more of an effect on the fossil fuel industries than climate regulations.
For at least three years now, the coal industry has been reeling from growing competition from natural gas, wind and solar power. Environmental regulations enacted under President Barack Obama haven’t helped any but they’ve played a much smaller role. Most of those regulations haven’t even taken effect. In March, Trump ordered a review of the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to reduce emissions from coal power plants, and the lifting of a moratorium on the sale of coal mining leases on federal lands.
So far, those moves have spurred a couple of relatively minor coal leases but no coal rush.
Here’s a look at the state of the U.S. coal industry:
An industry in decline
Experts say coal’s biggest problem isn’t climate change regulations but cheap and abundant natural gas. Gas prices dropped as advances in drilling such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, greatly increased the
Central Ohio again has the top-ranked company in Ohio based on the annual Fortune 500 list, a high-profile annual ranking of companies by revenue.
Cardinal Health lost the state’s top spot in the past two rankings to Cincinnati-based Kroger before reclaiming the designation on the list released Wednesday by Fortune magazine.
Fortune noted that Cardinal has been growing through acquisitions, including acquiring Cordis, naviHealth and Harvard Drug in late 2015.
Dublin-based Cardinal
ranked 15th overall on the national list. That appears to be the highest-ever spot for the drug distributor and medical products company, which last year had revenue of $121.5 billion.
Cardinal ranked 21st nationally on last year’s list, but has been in the top 20 a number of years since the early 2000s.
Ohio’s next-largest companies based on the new list were: Kroger (18th nationally) with revenue of $115.3 billion; Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble (36th nationally) with revenue of $71.7 billion; and Findlay-based Marathon (51st nationally) The full list is at http://beta.fortune.com/fortune500/list/ with revenue of $55.8 billion.
Nationwide was the second-ranked central Ohio company on the list, coming in fifth statewide and No. 68 nationally with revenue of $40 billion. Its 68th ranking was one spot higher than the previous year, and a significant bump from its ranking of 100 for two years straight in 2012 and 2013.
Other central Ohio companies making this year’s Fortune 500 list included American Electric Power (No. 167), L Brands (No. 220) and Big Lots (No. 495).
Walmart ranked as the nation’s largest company with revenue of $485.9 billion