The first commercial shipment of base stocks left Shell and Qatar Petroleums Pearl gas-to-liquids plant last week, bound for Houston. Shell said it was part of a plan that will send output from the Qatar plant to terminals in the United States, Germany and China. The Pearl plant, the worlds first large-scale GTL base stock plant, is located in Ras Laffan, Qatar. The base stock plant, part of a larger refinery that turns natural gas into fuels and other petroleum products, has two production tra...

Canadian rerefiner Newalta Corp. is undertaking an expansion of its plant in North Vancouver, British Columbia, which will enable it to process 75 million liters a year of used oil into API Group II base stocks. The company also is preparing to rebrand its entire portfolio of products for the lubricants industry. “We’re doing the up-front preliminary engineering work now, and the North Vancouver plant will have double its current base oil capacity by 2014,” Alain Portelance, p...

ORLANDO, Fla. – The American Petroleum Institute is on the verge of launching a national motor oil quality program to educate industry and consumers, license oil distributors and installers, and encourage state regulators to require the same disclosures for bulk oil as for bottled oil. Kevin Ferrick, manager of APIs Engine Oil Licensing and Certification System, told the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association annual meeting here last week that API has transformed Shells Motor Oil...

Blender and packager ZXP Technologies has completed a multi-million dollar expansion that adds 20 million to 25 million gallons of additional capacity at its plant in Texas. The plant expansion is the result of a significant piece of new business with a large multinational lubricant company, said Jayna Mull, executive vice president of sales and marketing. The client and the geographic region involved are confidential, according to Mull. The expansions additional capacity will be for internatio...

DUBAI, U.A.E. – Oil-producing countries of the Middle East will join China and other emerging markets as the main sources of growth for the lubricants industry in 2012 and beyond. The International Monetary Fund forecasts gross domestic product growth of 9 percent in China, 6.1 percent in emerging markets and 3.6 percent for the Middle East in 2012, Brad Bourland, chief economist and managing director of Riyadh-based Jadwa Investment, told the ICIS Middle Eastern Base Oils& Lubricant...