The New Category Development Team has locked in a strict timeline for creating PC-11, the proposed category upgrade for heavy-duty engine oils. The most telling thing about the schedule set by the NCDT at its March 29 meeting in Chicago is that it has no room for slippage on either engine test development or setting limits for these new diesel oils. Everything must stay on schedule in order to meet a Jan. 1, 2016 deadline for commercial introduction. To meet that end date, the American Petrole...

Contract blender and packager Lubricating Specialties Co. has acquired Wynn Oil Co.s former blending plant in Azusa, Calif., for an undisclosed amount and plans to upgrade it. According to astatement LSC provided to customers, the Azusa facility will be significantly renovated and upgraded. The statement indicates increased capabilities at the plant will include blending and packaging of automotive aftermarket products for oil, fuel, transmission, power steering, differential and cooling syste...

Private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors will acquire Milacron from Avenue Capital Group for an undisclosed amount. Milacrons Cimcool industrial fluids segment supplies metalworking and industrial fluids. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. Milacrons management team will continue with the company, which will remain headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. We believe Milacron is very well positioned to continue growing around the world and particularly in North America...

MOSCOW – Russian production of high quality API Groups II and III base oils is predicted to reach 1.7 million tons per year by 2020, meeting domestic demand and supplying blenders in Europe and Asia. Speaking at the World Refining Associations Base Oil and Lubricants in Russia and the CIS conference held here March 29, Tamara Kandelaki, general director of the Moscow consultancy InfoTek, described Russias expected shift away from solvent refining and adoption of catalytic and hydrotreatin...

Private equity firm The Riverside Co. acquired Galaxy Associates as an add-on to DuBois Chemicals. Both companies make specialty chemicals, including metalworking fluids. Financial terms were not disclosed. Cincinnati-based Galaxy and DuBois operate less than five miles from each other in Ohio and share similar business segments, end-markets, product offerings and targeted customers. Galaxy bolsters DuBois industrial metal finishing business while adding complementary capabilities to DuBois t...

BASF commissioned a new oxidized polyethylene waxes manufacturing plant at its Ludwigshafen site in Germany. The low-density polyethylene wax that forms the basis of the oxidized waxes comes directly from the sites polymerization plants. The company did not disclose the plants cost or specific capacity. As well as extending the capacity, we have also invested in modernizing the existing plant for polyethylene waxes, said Stefan Beckmann, senior vice president for home care and formulation tech...

WD-40 posted $10.6 million in operating income for the quarter ending Feb. 29, up 16.5 percent from the year-ago period, with net sales up 9 percent at $86 million. Earnings per share rose to 65 cents per diluted share in WD-40s fiscal second quarter, compared to 53 cents per share in the year-earlier period. San Diego-based WD-40s fiscal year goes from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31. The companys second-quarter sales in the Americas rose 21 percent to $46 million, sales in Europe declined 12 percent to $...