Thomas Gottwald, president and CEO of Afton parent NewMarket, noted that its petroleum additives results primarily reflect continuing earnings improvement in the lubricant additives product line. Petroleum additives operating profits for the first half of this year have improved in every major region of our operations. He added that our business continues to experience the adverse effects of increasing raw material costs which we are working to recover in the marketplace.

NewMarket, of Richmond, Va., reported $52.3 million in overall net income for the quarter, or $3.77 per diluted share, improving 31 percent on $39.9 million, or $2.69 per diluted share in 2010s second quarter.

Calumet
Calumet Specialty Products Partners posted a $7.7 million net loss for the quarter ending June 30, compared to a $900,000 net loss in the year-earlier period. The net loss reported for the quarter increased $6.7 million quarter over quarter due primarily to $15.1 million debt extinguishment costs, of which $14.4 million were noncash, Calumet stated.

Calumets sales totaled $733.8 million in the second quarter, up 42.6 percent from $514.7 million in 2010s second quarter.

We are pleased with our results for the second quarter, considering our production was limited by a three week shutdown of the ExxonMobil crude oil pipeline serving our Shreveport refinery during a portion of May and June, caused by the recent Mississippi River flooding, said Bill Grube, Indianapolis-based Calumets CEO and vice chairman of the board. Although specialty and fuel products production levels were higher quarter over quarter, we expect the third quarter to be further improved without the impact of the pipeline shutdown in the second quarter.

Fuchs
Fuchs Petrolub Group reported a 91.6 million (U.S. $130 million) net profit for the first six months of 2011, up almost 6 percent from 86.5 million during the same period last year.

Mannheim, Germany-headquartered Fuchs posted 828.5 million ($1.2 billion) in sales revenues for the first half of 2011, up 18.2 percent from 700.7 million in the year-earlier period. All three of Fuchs regions saw increased revenues for 2011s first six months, compared to the same period in 2010. For 2011s first half, revenue rose 20.7 percent to 510.4 million in Europe, increased 13 percent to 206.1 million in Asia-Pacific and Africa, and jumped up 18.5 percent to 138.1 million in North and South America.

In its outlook, Fuchs cautioned that significantly higher raw material costs, the steps taken by various countries to cool down their overheated markets, as well as the national debt crisis and the risk for banks and other sectors of the economy have caused growth to slow down and represent appreciable risks for the economic development in the second half of 2011.