Norwell, Massachusetts-based Clean Harbors’ Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment – which includes – which includes oil rerefining, waste oil collection and finished lubricants –

reported third party revenues of $225.9 million for the fourth quarter, a 5% decrease from

$238.4 million.

“Our Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment fell short of our expectations in Q4, as market conditions for base oil deteriorated late in the year,” Clean Harbors Co-Chief CEO Mike Battles said in the company’s earnings news release.

Battles explained that the base oil and lubricant pricing environment grew more challenging after a promising start to the quarter.

“The team continued to aggressively manage our waste oil collection costs in the face of pricing pressure while producing and selling considerable fourth-quarter volumes of products,” he said. “To feed our rerefineries, we collected 53 million gallons of waste oil in the quarter – averaging a net charge-for-oil compared with a net pay-for-oil in the prior year period. We also increased blended sales volumes by more than 60% from a year ago as we focus on opportunities to sell fewer commoditized products.”

For 2023, segment third party revenues declined 8% to $938.8 million, compared to $1.1 billion.

HF Sinclair

In the fourth quarter, HF Sinclair reported income from operations for lubricants and specialties segment of $36.7 million, a 17% drop from $44.3 million. The segment’s sales revenues from external customers decreased 10% to $656.8 million, compared to $729.9 million.

During 2023, HF Sinclair’s lubricants and specialties income from operations declined 12% to $260.3 million, compared to $296.3 million. Lubricants and specialties sales revenues from external customers also declined 12% last year, to $2.8 billion, compared to $3.1 billion in 2022.

Based in Dallas, HF Sinclair’s lubricants a specialties segment represents Petro-Canada Lubricants Inc.’s production operations, located in Mississauga, Ontario, that includes lubricant products such as base oils, white oils, specialty products and finished lubricants, and the operations of HF Sinclair’s Petro-Canada Lubricants business that includes the marketing of products to both retail and wholesale outlets through a global sales network with locations in Canada, the United States and Europe. The segment includes specialty lubricant products produced at HF Sinclair’s Tulsa refineries that are marketed throughout North America and are distributed in Central and South America. Acquired companies Red Giant Oil Co. and Sonneborn are also part of the company’s lubricants and specialty products segment.