ExxonMobil Chemical will build a metallocene polyalphaolefin synthetic lubricant base stock plant at its Baytown, Texas, complex by 2013, boosting its global PAO capacity by 50,000 metric tons per year. Engineering, procurement and construction activities have begun for the new facility, which will produce high-viscosity SpectraSyn Elite mPAO. While declining to disclose the plant constructions projected cost, Habib Quazi, ExxonMobil Chemical vice president, synthetics, told Lube Report, It do...

Despite bulk oil prices rising almost $1 per gallon, and more OEMs introducing longer oil drain intervals, U.S. quick lubes posted higher average tickets and continue to weather the impacts of rising costs, National Oil & Lube News reported. Published in the September issue of NOLN, the 2011 Fast Lube Operators Survey compiles data from 4,451 facilities in all 50 U.S. states, looking at quick lubes operations, prices, demographics, employees, sales, products and services. The average [qui...

Health Canada earlier this month updated its human health assessment for long-chain chlorinated paraffins to say they are not considered toxic to human health under Canadian Environmental Protection Act 1999. Upper-bounding estimates of daily intakes of LCCPs by the general population of Canada are well below the established [tolerable daily intake], and therefore, it is proposed that LCCPs are not harmful to human health as defined in the CEPA 1999, Health Canada stated. In addition, Health C...

Lubrizol Additives has invested more than $35 million to support global R&D and testing capabilities in the past three years, with another $50 million budgeted for the next three years. This is in addition to capital investment in operations, including the Wickliffe, Ohio-based companys new $200 million lubricant additive production plant in Zhuhai Gaolan Port Economic Zone in southern China announced last year. Chemical synthesis and applied sciences laboratories at Lubrizols Wickliffe fa...

Russia is raising the export duty on petrochemicals, including lubricants, Oct. 1. However, industry insiders dont expect higher international market prices for Russian base oil. The decree, recently signed by Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin, sets the flat export duty rate for lubricants, black oil, rerefined products, petroleum ointments and paraffins at 66 percent of the crude oil export duty, up from the current 47 percent. We dont expect any international markets price increa...

Europe can claim to have enjoyed the most amount of business over the past week, followed closely by Asia. The Americas continue to lag behind, but at least volumes and possibilities have not deteriorated at all. U.S. Gulf of Mexico It has been marginally busier in the Gulf-to-Caribbean market with small lots of acid, styrene, vegetable oil and base oils, with the occasional tender for clean petroleum products into some of the islands. Overall however, there is still plenty of open tonnage, an...