A new automaker organization is proposing a global framework for industry performance specifications for lubricants and other fluids, stating a desire to speed and streamline the work of current regional approaches. The International Fluids Consortium aims to replace or consolidate frameworks currently run through pillar organizations such as ACEA, ILSAC, API and JASO, creating a system that is led by automakers and includes input from the lubricants industry but does not require its consensus t...

Total has decided to permanently close a base oil plant at its refinery in Gonfreville, France, as part of a project to overhaul the Normandy complex. The plant has not produced base oil since a fire damaged the refinery’s crude unit in December 2019.

The outlook of lubricant marketers and distributors in Russia improved significantly from December to March, according to the latest survey conducted by a Moscow consulting firm. The March Lubricants Business Monitor by the firm B2X generated a business confidence index of 58.6 on a scale of zero to 100. The index from the December version of the survey was 39.2.