It is a tight picture in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico for February loading. Europe is enjoying a strong performance in the local market, but not much is happening deep-sea. Asia is quiet on both coastal and long-haul routes. U.S. Gulf of Mexico The fact that there are few imports into the United States is perhaps the main reason why freights have not gone down on export cargoes. Essentially, the pool of open tonnage grows a little but then recedes as ships are fixed away, maintaining a steady balanc...

Hyundai Oilbank yesterday said it and Shell Petroleum Co. Ltd. plan to form a joint venture to build and operate a 13,000 barrels per day base oil plant in Daesan, South Korea, with production expected to begin in 2014. According to Shell, the proposed base oil plant’s initial design capacity is 650,000 metric tons per year, which is about 13,000 b/d. It is conditional upon a successful completion of a front end engineering and design study, that starts with the signature of this joint ve...

Unlike civilians, the diverse armed forces of NATO must be prepared to operate in any environment and under severe conditions at any time. Ideally, each member’s military -and its lubricants – will perform interchangeably when called on by its allies. That’s the ideal, but the only way to accomplish this is to severely restrict the number and types of lubricants purchased by NATO’s 28 member forces, according to Peter Bartl of Germany’s Federal Armed Forces (Bundes...

Afton Chemical reported an increase in revenue and a decline in operating profit for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2011, compared to the year-earlier period. NewMarket, Afton Chemicals parent company, said its petroleum additives segment posted a $59.3 million operating profit for 2011s fourth quarter, down 17.6 percent from $73 million in the year-earlier period. We believe that the decline in shipments and operating profits in the fourth quarter include the effect of reduction of inventory leve...

The opening of Shells Russian blending plant has been delayed again, to mid-2012. Shell previously pushed back the completion date for the 180,000 metric tons per year capacity plant in Torzhok, Tver region, from the end of 2010 to December 2011, citing developmental issues and delays in construction and material supply. The construction works at the blending complex are almost done and it should be finished in the first half of 2012, Vera Surzhenko, a spokeswoman for Shell in Russia, told Lube...

South Korean base oil refiners SK Lubricants and S-Oil reported strong increases in operating income and revenues for the quarter ending Dec. 31, compared to a year earlier. Each companys full year operating income and revenues were also up from 2010. SK Lubricants SK Lubricants posted a 94.5 billion South Korean won (U.S. $84.6 million) operating profit for the fourth quarter, up 25 percent from the year-earlier period. For the full fiscal year 2011, SK Lubricants totaled 510.9 billion won in ...

Raloy Lubricants and railroad company Kansas City Southern de Mexico recently opened the Diamond International transload center, a storage terminal that will primarily be used for lubricants, base oil, additives, antifreeze and brake fluids. Diamond will operate the transload center, which has capacity to handle 400 rail cars and 27,000 tons annually at its location in Mexico City. Raloy will receive the base oils coming from the U.S. in this terminal by rail car and ship to its facility, a Ralo...