Market Topics

TORONTO – Ciba Specialty Chemicals has reached an exclusive agreement to market dibasic acid corrosion inhibitors produced at a new plant built ...

Arizona Chemical Co. announced last week that it will expand its plant in Dover, Ohio, and close another in Picayune, Miss., in an effort to streamlin ...

Two European lubricant suppliers reported sizable improvements in their first quarter financial performance. Germanys Fuchs Petrolub AG said its net i ...

Base Oil Price Report

May 26, 2004

ExxonMobil confirmed yesterday that it is limiting some base oil customers from purchasing more than previously projected volumes. The company attribu ...

A variety of factors have been cited as contributing to the elevated level of base oil prices the past year and a half – cost of crude oil, the ...

Finnish refiner Fortum announced this week an expansion that will boost capacity at its Porvoo, Finland, base oil plant by 30,000 metric tons per year ...

Lubricant and fluid supplier Acculube announced last week that it has acquired OEM Fluid Management, a provider of fluid management services. Terms of ...

Good News for Graham

May 19, 2004

Graham Packaging Holdings Co. reported last week that its operating income for the first quarter rose 17 percent from the same period of 2003, an anno ...

Base Oil Price Report

May 19, 2004

Sunoco said it is continuing efforts to repair a deasphalting unit damaged by a March 23 fire at its Tulsa, Okla., refinery. The company declined to d ...

After more than a year of often leisurely debate over technical specifications, the American Petroleum Institute’s Lubricants Committee is lungi ...

Ethyl Unveils New Name

May 12, 2004

Ethyl Corp. announced May 5 that it plans to rename its Petroleum Additives business Afton Chemical Corp. following a restructuring that it hopes to h ...

Citgo is moving its headquarters to Houston, and most of the home offices lube-related jobs are going with it. The company, which for 30 years has bee ...

Tribospec Corp. is getting back to its roots, announcing recently that it has entered an agreement to represent Sunoco branded lubricants throughout C ...

Base Oil Price Report

May 12, 2004

Several more base oil suppliers joined the round of price hikes begun last week. Sellers and buyers agreed that the market was ripe for its third incr ...

The quick-lube market in the United States may seem fairly saturated, but that has not kept a few chains from growing at healthy clips. Among chains w ...

The Ukrainian government said recently that it is preparing to sell a controlling share in Azmol, one of the largest lubricant suppliers in Eastern Eu ...

Ethyl Corp., Quaker Chemical Corp. and the industrial fluids business of Milacron all recorded sales surges for the first quarter of 2004. Profitabili ...

ExxonMobil Chemical says it is upgrading its Beaumont, Texas, polyalphaolefins plant to produce additional PAO products it calls “Group IV-plus. ...

British ester manufacturer Esterchem Ltd. announced last week that it has completed an expansion that has boosted its capacity by 30 percent to 14,000 ...

Base Oil Price Report

May 5, 2004

Valeros Paulsboro, N.J. base oil refinery has been shut down while the company brings up a new low-sulfur gasoline unit. ExxonMobil, Motiva, ConocoPhi ...