Cooper Power Systems Inc. and Cargill Industrial Oils and Lubricants last week announced an international expansion of their six-month-old alliance covering a soybean-based transformer oil. Cargill will begin manufacturing Coopers Envirotemp FR3 at facilities around the world in order to meet growing demand, the companies said.
A global manufacturer of equipment for electrical networks, Houston-based Cooper developed Envirotemp FR3 and pitches it as more effective and environmentally safer than other transformer oils, which have traditionally been made from naphthenic base stocks.
In 2004, the companies entered a manufacturing, marketing and distribution alliance that called for Cargill to begin making the product at its main plant in Chicago. Initially sales were concentrated in North America, but the companies say demand elsewhere has been growing, so they have expanded the partnership to cover the European Union, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand and Korea. Cargill has manufacturing facilities in some of those areas and will begin making FR3 in those places, too.
Cargill Industrial Oils and Lubricants is part of Minneapolis-based agricultural products giant Cargill and is a supplier of natural fats, oils and plant-based products used by industry.