The first week of the New Year has been subdued in all regions, but this is normal. It takes a little longer for companies to review the stock situation; trade should resume gradually over the next week. U.S. Gulf of Mexico The market in the U.S. Gulf is poised to take off from where it left off at the end of last year. Asian demand is the powerhouse, generating lots of enquiry for different products, such as glycols, acrylonitrile, aromatics, styrene and acetone. Most of the scheduled ships...

Calumet Specialty Products Partners last week completed its acquisitions of blender and distributor TruSouth Oil and Ashland subsidiary Hercules synthetic aviation and refrigerant lubricants business. Terms were not disclosed for either transaction. Prior to its acquisition, TruSouth was owned in part by Fred Fehsenfeld Jr. chairman of the board of Calumets general partner; the spouse of F. William Grube, vice chairman and CEO of Calumets general partner; and other members of the Fehsenfeld and...

Petroplus Holdings AG is closing its Petit Couronne, France, refinery this month, including its 7,300 barrels per day base oil plant, to cut costs. Petit Couronne is in the process of being safely shut down, Petroplus announced Jan. 5. Labor actions at the site are currently restricting liftings of products. The refinery has 550 employees. The Petit Couronne base oil plant has 6,300 b/d of API Group I capacity and 1,000 b/d of Group III capacity. The company previously announced Dec. 30 the t...

A federal judge in Louisiana sentenced the city of Pineville to a $15,000 fine and one year unsupervised probation Jan. 4 for the illegal discharge of hydraulic fluid from a pumping station. According to a Jan. 4 Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality statement, following heavy rainfall from Hurricane Gustav in 2008, Pinevilles Huffman Creek pumping station illegally discharged hydraulic fluid over the levee and into Bayou Maria, which ultimately empties in the Red River. An investigati...

Shell Lubricants Technology formed a two-year research and development partnership with a laboratory at Chinas Tsinghua University, to focus on lubrication of textured surfaces. In a statement, Shell said the partnership with the universitys State Key Laboratory of Tribology will generate data that can be used to create solutions for Shell Lubricants original equipment manufacturer customers and develop research in key areas fundamental to advancing lubrication science. Via the partnership, Tsi...

WD-40 Co.s net income reached $6.8 million for the quarter ending Nov. 30, down 25 percent from the prior year period, while net sales were up 5 percent at $84.9 million. Earnings per share fell to 42 cents per diluted share in WD-40s fiscal first quarter, compared to 54 cents per share in the year-ago period. San Diego-headquartered WD-40s fiscal year goes from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31. First-quarter sales in the Americas rose 4 percent to $40.6 million, sales in Europe declined 2 percent to $30.1 ...

The Whitmore Manufacturing Co. named Jeff Kilpatrick president and chief executive officer effective Jan. 3, the companys third in three years. Kilpatrick replaces Jeff Peterson, who is returning to parent company Capital Southwest Corp. to oversee the organizations venture capital investments within their specialty chemicals and manufacturing businesses sector. Dallas-based Capital Southwest is a publicly-owned investment company that bills itself as providing patient equity capital to busines...