Nynas announced Monday it has reached an agreement to take over a Shell plant in Harburg, Germany, that makes both naphthenic and paraffinic base stocks. Stockholm, Sweden-based Nynas is mostly interested in the plants naphthenic output, and the deal will allow it to close a gap with Ergon, the worlds largest pale oil supplier. Nynas officials have said that the company sees growth opportunity and that it wanted to increase capacity in order to take advantage. In 2009 officials announced plan...

NEW ORLEANS – What was a foregone conclusion is now a fact: Work on the next heavy-duty engine oil category, PC-11, got under way in earnest here at the ASTM Committee D-2 meeting last week. PC-11 had already been green-lighted by the Diesel Engine Oil Advisory Panel and American Petroleum Institute, but the decision became formal during the Heavy Duty Engine Oil Classification Panel meeting on Tuesday. From a marketplace perspective, PC-11 seems poised to appear as two new oils, PC-11 &...

MOSCOW – Spurred by greater ownership of private vehicles, tougher emissions mandates and newer engine designs, Russia’s appetite for automotive lubes is growing in both size and sophistication, says an industry insider. Speaking here Nov. 9 at the Lubricants Russia 2011 conference hosted by RPI, Mike Boyer of Lubrizol said that increased car sales are resulting in greater demand for high-quality oils in Russia and elsewhere in Europe. “Emissions limits continue to tighten as ...

Sea-Land Chemical Co. will distribute Lubrizol Additives metalworking and other industrial additives in North America effective Jan. 1, 2012. Lubrizol stated that it chose Westlake, Ohio-based Sea-Land because of its reputation, technical expertise, years of experience and knowledge of the industrial lubricants market. From a Lubrizol Additives standpoint, we have historically had distributors, but they were all outside of North America, Jon Ridgway, global business manager for metalworking, t...

Newly formed P2 Science is using technology licensed from Yale University to develop and manufacture a new class of surfactants that has potential use as an emulsifier in industrial lubricants. The company said the high performance C-glycosides (CG) surfactants are mild in use, stable, customizable and manufactured in low energy-intensive conditions. The patent pending technology is from the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. Patrick Foley, the lead Yale inventor in the CG f...

There are very few open positions in the U.S. Gulf for December. Europe has made steady if unexciting progress. Asian domestic markets are busier, but the surplus of tonnage is making itself felt on export business. Americas In spite of being exceptionally tight on open space for any direction out of the U.S. Gulf in December, rates have mostly stabilised. The reason is that charterers have, out of necessity, moved things forward to January which open up more tonnage possibilities. U.S. Gulf-t...