The European market has seen brisk trade during the past week. The U.S. Gulf remains tight on January space with good demand reported, and Asia is much quieter in advance of the Lunar New Year celebrations. U.S. Gulf of Mexico There are undoubtedly a large number of requirements from the U.S. Gulf for January, but there are not many ships around to service the demand. Certainly on the U.S. Gulf to Far East route there is an impressive list of orders, mostly consisting of 10,000 ton cargoes or ...

MOSCOW – Lukoil and Russian Railways formed a joint venture and will invest 1 billion rubles (U.S. $316 million) in a grease production plant expected to stream in June 2012 in Volgograd, Russia. The plant will produce greases for rail transportation, oil exploration and production, metallurgy, and the machine building industry, as well as greases for general purposes, both companies said. LLK International, Lukoils lubricant arm, and the state Russian Railways (RZhD), the countrys railw...

Avista Oil AG of Germany acquired a majority stake in Universal Environmental Services, which is building a new rerefinery in Georgia. Terms were not disclosed. In early 2011, Avista acquired a 50 percent stake in Universal Environmental Services (UES), enabling it to grow its used oil collection business and plan the base oil rerefinery in Peachtree City, Ga. Private equity groups MidMark Capital and Navigator Partners held the remaining 50 percent. Plans call for a plant that can process 30 m...

Opet-Fuchs will build a blending plant in Turkey expected to open in 2013, with initial capacity of 50,000 metric tons per year. The joint venture, established in 2005, acquired Opets lubricants business effective Jan. 2. Opet-Fuchs General Manager Murat Seyhan said at a Jan. 11 news conference that the $25 million blending plants first phase will be completed by the end of 2013. A second phase will later increase capacity to 75,000 tons per year. The new plant is expected to replace an existin...

Greenbriar Equity Group acquired lubricants distributor PetroChoice from private equity firm KRG Capital Partners. Terms were not disclosed. Riddlesburg, Pa.-based PetroChoice was the lubricant distributing holding company of KRG Capital Partners, a Denver-based private equity investment firm. Other lubricants distributors under PetroChoice include Tri-County Petroleum, acquired in December 2007, the automotive division of Loos and Dilworth, acquired in April 2009, and Wisconsion-based Anderson...

Big problems in food production and safety equal big opportunity for the supplier of food-grade lubricants, a Chemtura grease official said during a recent Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers webinar. Chemtura Global Grease Manager Wayne Mackwood made the comment during his presentation, Grease and its Use in Food Processing. Mackwood believes one of the bigger problems facing the food supply chain today is that a very large section of the worlds food is not processed using an ap...

Oryx Oil and Gas has opened its second lubricant blending plant in Africa. The new 18,000-metric-ton facility is located in the Togo port city of Lome and is intended help Oryx expand in West Africa. Right now, most of our lubricant sales are in East Africa, Guillaume Desenne, lubricants director for Oryx Oil and Gas, told Lube Report. Most of the countries in West Africa are smaller markets. But we see opportunity to grow our business there, and we believe this plant will help us do that. The...

Ford will recall more than 244,000 vehicles because brake fluid could leak from a defective brake master cylinder reservoir cap and lead to electrical problems. On Jan. 4 the automaker notified the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration of the safety recall, which applies to 244,530 model year 2001 and 2002 Ford Escape vehicles equipped with ABS. In April 2007 Ford conducted a safety recall to address potentially missing or misplaced seals in the wiring harness connector to the ...