5% WAGE BOOST will go to some 500,000 of oil industry's workers and salaried employees. Hike lifts average hourly pay of refinery workers from $2.71 to $2.84 1/2.

AMERICAN EXPRESS credit cards have been issued to 500,000, v. 940,000 who hold Diners' Club cards.

UNITED AIR LINES, not hit by strikes, almost doubled its net earnings in 1958 to record $14,300,802.

U.S. EXPORTS will rise from last year's estimated $16.2 billion to more than $17 billion, while imports will go from $12.9 billion to $13.8 billion in 1959, predicts National Foreign Trade Council. One big reason for export gain: convertibility of Europe's currencies.

WEST GERMANY'S OPEL, a General Motors subsidiary, spurted to No. 2 spot within the company, counting cars and trucks. Last year Opel boosted production by more than 25%, to 315,945 units, well ahead of Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac and Cadillac, though far behind Chevrolet's 1,534,575. During year, Opel exported 19,500 cars to U.S.

NEW OIL TAX in Venezuela, splitting profits 60-40 instead of previous 50-50, has already begun to pinch U.S. companies. Creole Petroleum Corp. reported that earnings dipped from $397 million in 1957 to estimated $239 million in 1958.

HUGE URANIUM FIND, perhaps biggest in U.S., was made in Wyoming's Shirley Basin area shared by Utah Construction Co., Tidewater Oil Co., Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc. Reserves there total 1,500,000 to 4,000,000 tons of high-grade ore (.8% uranium oxide), but most of it will not be mined for a long while because market is glutted.

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