Sri Lankan petroleum company Lanka IOC has been expanding its lubricant outreach to the Association of South East Asian Nations region. An overseas venture of Indian Oil Corp., Lanka IOC currently only has operations based in Sri Lanka, with established export chains to the Maldives and Nepal. However, the company recently said it has been given the latitude by Indian Oil to expand to ASEAN markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Myanmar. According to Lanka IOC Manag...

Vietnams VN Oil has picked Chemical Engineering Partners of California to construct the countrys first used oil rerefinery, with capacity to process 69,000 metric tons of used oil per year and produce 50,000 t/y of API Group II base oil. Expected to start up by April 2015, the rerefinery will sit on 12 acres in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park, approximately nine miles from downtown Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. CEPs CFO Harrison Phillips told Lube Report that the company expects the new plant wil...

Additives manufacturer Chevron Oronite last week said it is achieving milestones in four major capital projects – two in Singapore and two in France – aimed at strengthening its supply chain and positioning the company for further growth. The four projects include: the previously announced expansion of its Singapore manufacturing plant, which when completed in early 2014, will have more than doubled in capacity since its commissioning in 1999; further expansion of the Singapore...

Valvoline Cummins Ltd. has opened a plant in India with capacity to manufacture and package 120 million liters of lubricants per year, with possible expansion to 150 million liters. The company is a joint venture formed in 1998 by the partnership of Cummins India Ltd. and Ashland Inc., the Kentucky-based producer of Valvoline products. The joint venture invested $30 million in the new plant, which covers 10 acres of the Ambernath Industrial Area outside of Mumbai. In its May 8 press release, V...

Calumet posted a decrease in net income and a rise in sales during the first quarter, compared to 2012s first quarter. For the quarter ending March 31, Calumet Specialty Products Partners reported net income of $46 million, down 11.4 percent from $51.9 million in the year-earlier period. First quarter sales for Indianapolis-based Calumet topped $1.3 billion, up slightly from $1.2 billion in 2012s first quarter. Specialty products sales volumes in the first quarter reached 37,989 barrels per d...

Colleen Cervantes will become president of Chevron Lubricants effective July 1, following the June 30 retirement of Danny Roden, the company announced. In addition, Cary Knuth will become general manager, base oils, effective June 1, succeeding Patti Leigh, who will be general manager for planning and optimization. Cervantes is currently Chevrons vice president of products supply and trading. She joined Chevron in 1983 as a project engineer in retail marketing. She has held positions in market...

MUMBAI, India – Indias base oil market is growing 2 to 4 percent a year, but with no expansions planned, the country will continue to import more than half its needs. API Group III base stocks will proliferate at the expense of Groups I and II, accounting for 35 percent of engine oil demand by 2018. Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. General Manager for Technical Services R. Suresh projected strong growth in Group III demand in India over the next five years at the ICIS Indian Base Oils & Lubrica...

Delfin Group USA terminated company President John Gordon in late April. The lube blender had fired its previous president, Markos Baghdasarian, in September 2012 following his arrest in May last year on charges of exporting aviation oils in violation of a U.S. economic embargo in Iran. Gordon confirmed to Lube Report that Delfin terminated him as president on April 25, with no advance notice or reason provided. He declined to comment beyond that. Gordon, who had been vice president at Delfin, ...