PITTSBURGH – Expect lubricants made with gas-to-liquids base oil from Shell-Qatar Petroleums Pearl plant to be priced in line with other synthetics, a Shell Lubricants official said. The GTL base oil is a really great quality [API] Group III synthetic base stock, Mark Ferner, Shells U.S. Lubricants Group manager, told a media briefing here July 14. The Pearl plant is expected to begin making and shipping base stocks as early as August 2011. Expected to have 28,800 barrels per day capacit...

Lubrizols additives segment reported revenue of $1.2 billion, up 20 percent from $1 billion in 2010s second quarter. The company also announced plans to open a new laboratory in China this year. The increase in revenues was due to an improvement in the combination of price and product mix, favorable currency, as well as slightly higher volume, Lubrizol said. The additives segment posted $282.4 million in operating income for the quarter ending June 30, up 4 percent from year-earlier results. As...

Castrol India, which has an estimated 10 percent of Indias lubricants market, will close an older, inefficient lubricants blending plant in South India July 31. The company recently notified the Bombay Stock Exchange it would close the plant in Tondiarpet in Chennai, in the state of Tamil Nadu. The Tondiarpet plant is one of the companys oldest plants in the country, and was faced with a situation of high landed cost of base oil, leading to a steep increase in its manufacturing cost per liter ...

Hydrodec and Kobelco Eco-Solutions established Pacific Eco Refining, a joint venture that will use Hydrodecs technology in a new transformer oil rerefinery in Japan. According to Hydrodec, specific details such as the location of the plant remain confidential while negotiations with suppliers and customers are under way. Good progress continues to be made towards the start-up of this first plant in the second half of 2012, the company stated. The companies will begin joint operations through P...

Tonnage in the U.S. Gulf is building again, threatening rates going forward. Europes coastal market is still active, but deep-sea trade lanes dont provide much hope for ship owners. Asian business continues to develop nicely, both domestic and international. U.S. Gulf of Mexico The U.S. Gulf has hit a quiet patch which is further bad news for those owners with tonnage open in the region, some of which have been idle for several weeks. A flurry of import business has been reported too, which wil...