The shipping market remains overall slow. Some particular trade lanes could appear to be busy because there is hardly any space available for small cargoes, but the same areas show a list of ships open fairly prompt, which are not feeling confident about to where to fix the next employment due to the lack of trading activity. We are entering in the traditional quiet summer period so the expectations are that this flat trend will not change in the next two months. U.S. Gulf of Mexico The U.S. Gu...

Universal Environmental Services has built up a supply of used oil for its rerefinery project in Peachtree City, Georgia, which it expects to be operational in 2013. Plans call for a plant that can process 30 million gallons of waste oil per year and produce API Group II base oil. Our rerefinery project is going according to plan, and we intend to keep our deadline of being 100 percent operational by Q2 2013, UES CEO Juan Fritschy told Lube Report. The mechanical completion will be done by Dece...

SINGAPORE – Global base oil capacity is expanding at unprecedented rates, and most new projects enjoy production cost advantages, putting pressure on existing suppliers to reduce output, reduce profits or shut down. Blake Eskew, Houston-based vice president of consultancy IHS, highlighted global base oil supply developments at the ICIS Asian Base Oils & Lubricants Conference here on June 27. (IHS acquired Purvin & Gertz last year.) Historically, said Eskew, global base oil capa...

A Los Angeles-based private equity company yesterday completed its $830 million acquisition of Tank Holdings Corp., which makes polyethylene and steel. Olympus Partners of Stamford, Conn., created Tank Holding Corp. (THC) in September 2008 by combining Snyder Industries, Inc., and Norwesco, Inc. Since then, it has integrated seven other acquisitions into THC, which it sold yesterday to Leonard Green & Partners, L.P. Besides specializing in plastic tanks for storing, transporting and pro...

WD-40 posted net income of $9.1 million for the quarter ending May 31, up 11 percent from the year-ago period, with net sales up 1.8 percent at $87 million. Earnings rose to 57 cents per diluted share in WD-40s fiscal third quarter, compared to 47 cents per share in the year-earlier period. San Diego-headquartered WD-40s fiscal year runs from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31. The companys third-quarter sales in the Americas declined 5 percent to $43.9 million, sales in Europe climbed 7 percent to $30.1 mill...