Ryan Dezember

Xcel Energy's shares are tumbling after the utility owner said in [a securities filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/72903/000007290324000048/xel-20240228.htm) that lawyers for property insurers have said it may be liable for damages in the largest of the [wildfires raging in north Texas](https://www.wsj/us-news/climate-environment/texas-panhandle-wildfires-oklahoma-evacuations-624ed09b). Xcel said the lawyers asked it to preserve a utility pole owned by its Southwestern Public Service Company that fell "within the vicinity of the fire’s potential area of origin." The lawyers' letter "purports to provide Xcel Energy with notice of potential exposure for damages," the filing said.

Natural-gas prices are rising after a second big producer said it curtailed output in response to low prices brought on by [unusually warm winter weather and record U.S. production](https://www.wsj/finance/commodities-futures/natural-gas-hasnt-been-this-cheap-in-decades-95959da7).

The flagging shares of America's largest wood-pellet exporter got a lift Tuesday after Enviva said it had agreed to extend a forbearance agreement with creditors through March 11. The forbearance agreement that Enviva struck last month after [missing a bond payment](https://www.wsj/articles/wood-pellet-maker-enviva-misses-bond-payment-82b39df7) expired. Enviva's shares, [which reached nearly $90 in 2022](https://www.wsj/articles/wood-pellet-exports-boom-amid-ukraine-war-environmental-concerns-11659915622), have traded for less than $1 this year.

Shares of EQT are having one of their worst days in two years and leading the S&P 500 lower after the natural-gas producer said it would [buy back the pipeline operator that it had spun off in 2018](https://www.

International Paper shares are having one of their best days since they rebounded from the 2020 lockdown crash and are atop the S&P after the cardboard producer named Andrew Silvernail as its next chief executive.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones beefed up his investment in natural-gas producer Comstock Resources, paying about $100.5 million for another 12.5 million shares in the Frisco, Texas firm. The private placement lifts Jones' stake to about 67%, from 65%, and will help Comstock go on the offensive at a time when natural gas is cheaper than its been in decades. Comstock said it will use the cash to pay down bank debt, some of which was incurred buying more drilling land in the western Haynesville Shale, where it has drilled prolific wells.

International Paper shares sank after the cardboard-box maker revealed an all-stock takeover offer for DS Smith that values its U.K. rival at more than $7 billion. + The decline wipes out a chunk of the share-price gains International Paper has made since naming a new CEO last week.

Construction employment continues to boom, adding 39,000 jobs last month and 270,000 since March 2023, according to Labor Department data. When the Fed began hiking interest rates about two years ago, the central bank was searching for the magic number that would cool the red-hot housing market. The highest borrowing costs in decades prevented homeowners locked into cheap loans from moving and forced a lot of house hunters into new construction.

U.S. coal exports are likely to decline 6% this year compared to last following last month's bridge collapse in Baltimore, federal energy forecasters estimate. The fallen bridge blocking two coal export terminals at Baltimore's port is expected to cut U.S. exports by a third this month and 20% in May, the Energy Information Administration estimates. Shipping terminals owned by miner Consol Energy and railway CSX that are upstream from the collapsed span accounted for about 28% of exports, according to government data.

Shares of homebuilders and building products firms are tumbling after the Census Bureau's tally of housing starts showed a big decline in March. Housing starts fell 14.7% from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.47 million, a bad sign heading into the spring building season that suggests mortgage rates' recent climb toward 7% is taking a toll on demand. It has been a sharp reversal for shares of homebuilders and companies that manufacture and distribute building products.