Volume 12 Issue 23

Base Oil Producers Bunt

After a fast start to the year, first-quarter U.S. base oil production seemed to be dampened by rising feedstock costs, numerous refinery turnarounds and wavering interest from buyers. Although domestic producers loosed a hefty 5.1 million barrels of base oil on the market in January – their most promising start since 2008 – they quickly backed off from that pace, according to data released last week by the Department of Energy. By the quarter’s close, U.S. refiners had muste...

Gazprom Ready to Blend Big

Gazprom Neft opened its new 70,000 metric tons per year lubricants blending plant in Omsk, Western Siberia, and expects an additional 110,000 t/y upgrade by 2013. Increasing the quality of finished products is among the highest priorities of our companys strategy development, Alexey Miller, Gazproms president, said during the plants opening ceremony last week. The new [lubes] production complex at Omsk refinery could only benefit the modern lubricants production in Russia. Gazprom Neft-SM, the...

New Capacity Redraws Base-oil Map

Global API Group II and III capacity spiked 13 percent in the past year while Group I capacity continued to shrink, the 2012 Guide to Global Base Oil Refining from LubesnGreases shows. Published June 1 and mailed to all print-edition LubesnGreases subscribers, the Global Guide to Base Oil Refining lists nearly 160 base oil plants and rerefineries worldwide, identifying owners, locations, and capacities. The 2012 Guide reports total global capacity of 969,000 barrels per day, up 2 percent from l...

Repsol Expansion Plans Continue

Spains Repsol YPF changed its name to Repsol S.A. after Argentinas nationalization of YPF, and indicated a base oil expansion project at its Cartagena refinery will continue as planned. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner confirmed in a government notice May 30 that Repsols 51 percent share in YPF would officially be in the hands of the government as of June 4. YPF is Argentinas leading lubricants supplier and operates a 4,700 barrels per day API Group I base oil plant in La Plat...