Delfin Group USA, a division of Moscow-based Delfin Group Russia, recently acquired a 41.7 acre North Charleston, S.C., industrial site from Chevron for $20 million. Delfin plans to blend, package and distribute lubricating oils from the site, which has easy access to rail and shipping.
Hagood Morrison, director of industrial brokerage for Colliers Keenan Inc., said the property was on the market for about five months. It was priced at $26 million, and sold for $20 million, Morrison told Lube Report. He said the property had more than 100 prospects and 45 site visits while it was on the market.
According to Morrison, Chevron believed the sale was a good match because they could close quickly, and Delfin had a pretty good reputation. It also met the timetable, as they had wanted to close by years end.
According to a published report in the Charleston Regional Business Journal, Delfin plans to ship various lubricating oils to the facility for blending, bottling and sale in both domestic and overseas markets, with operations expected to start in February.
The industrial site encompasses about 291,362 square feet of space within 11 buildings.
The location has several large, above ground storage tanks, some capable of holding 2.5 million gallons, in the western third of the facility. According to Colliers Keenan, there are nearly 100 smaller tanks scattered throughout the facility, mostly in the eastern third of the manufacturing plant area, for holding petroleum additives and lubricating oils. Since 1978, only lubricating oils have been handled at the site. The facility was most recently used to store, blend, package and distribute lubricating oils.
The site has been in use as a gasoline or lube oil terminal since 1910, when it was initially operated by Texaco Petroleum Products. The plant became part of the Equilon Lubricants joint venture between Texaco and Shell in 1997, and in 2002 was part of Shell Oil Products US.
Shell in October 2006 exercised an option to sell the plant, which employed 78 at the time, to Chevron, which did not continue operations at the site. In June 2007, Chevrol selected Colliers Keenan, which had sold a nearby industrial site, to broker the sale of the property.
According to Colliers Keenan promotional materials about the site, it is located along three rail spurs linking to the CSX and Norfolk Southern rail lines, with six railcar loading and offloading spots. The site has frontage on the Port of Charleston shipping channel, with a 14-mile trip to open sea.
The site has a stated overall production capacity of 50 million gallons per year, with 45 percent bulk transferred via rail or truck, and 55 percent packaged products.
Delfin Group Russia, headquartered in Moscow, operates manufacturing plants in Moscow and Riga, adjacent to the Baltic Sea. The company developed and promoted German motor oil under the Brilltex brand in the Russian market.
Delfin Group Russias parent company is Delfin Group Worldwide, whose affiliates include Delfin Industry (formerly Luxoil), which manufactures and packages motor oils, transmission fluids and other automotive chemicals. The Russian industrial group Spectr-Auto, manufacturer of Spectrol brand motor oils and other lubricants, is another member of Delfin Group Worldwide.