Volume 13 Issue 46

SSY Base Oil Shipping Report

The U.S. market has taken a step back in advance of Thanksgiving. Europe is trying to develop more demand but has not been entirely successful, while Asian activity has not progressed much either. U.S. Gulf It has been a little disappointing out of the U.S. Gulf over the past week. There just does not seem to have been anyone who pulled the trigger to initiate the usual melee that takes place in the final weeks of the year. On the U.S. Gulf to Far East route, non-scheduled ships are milling ar...

Sasol Shares GTL Details

Sasols proposed 96,000 barrels per day gas-to-liquids plant in Lake Charles, La., could make as much as 9,000 b/d GTL base oil, according to a presentation at the recent American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers conference in Houston.Max Vreugde, Sasol North Americas business development manager for GTL base oils, presented, The Outlook for GTL Base Oils in North America, at AFPMs International Lubricants and Waxes Meeting. In the presentation, Vreugde said Sasol is currently looking at m...

Sinopec Upgrades Base Oils

Chinese petroleum giant Sinopec has been busy upgrading its base oil sites to meet the nations fast-growing demand for high quality lubes.Zeng Haiying, manager, Sinopec Lubricants Co., discussed the improvements in a presentation, Base Oil Development Status and Outlook, at CBIs China Base Oil Summit in Chongqing in September.The goal is to produce more high quality base stocks, Zeng added in a subsequent interview with Lube Report.Demand is basically driven by two trends, she added – soar...

Imperial to Close Sarnia Lube Ops

Imperial Oil will discontinue lubricant blending and packaging operations at its Sarnia, Ontario, facility by 2015, the company told plant employees last week.Blending and packing operations will transition to Imperials Edmonton, Ontario, location as well as ExxonMobil facilities in the United States over the next year and a half, Imperial Oil spokesman Jon Harding told Lube Report.The decision will not affect other Imperial enterprises at the Sarnia site, including its crude refinery, chemical ...

More Lubes for China

Shell has completed an expansion that doubles the size of its lubricant blending facilities in Zhapu, China.In an announcement last week, officials said the site in Zhejiang Province now has capacity of 400 million liters per year (about 360,000 metric tons per year) and is its largest blending site in China.The project actually involved construction of a second blending plant on property adjacent to an existing facility. Energy giant Shell, which has dual headquarters in the United Kingdom and ...

UAE Loves Lubes

The United Arab Emirates offer a warm welcome to the lubricant and base oil industries, and will move fast to API Groups II and III base oils in coming years, a local consultant says.UAEs domestic lubricant market, excluding its important marine oil business, is about 141,000 metric tons per year, independent consultant T.R. Kumar told the ICIS Middle East Base Oils & Lubricants Conference in Dubai in October.Looking at the local UAE lubes market, Kumar estimated that Abu Dhabi National Oil...

Shell to Boost Lubes in Russia

Shell expects to double its lubricants production in Russia in 2014 and to start exporting to Belarus, Ukraine and other neighboring countries, the company said on Tuesday.The company expects to produce around 40 million liters of finished products at its plant in Torzhok, Russia, by the end of this year. The plant produces 26 types of finished lubricants and is one of the Shell’s biggest production facilities worldwide.Next year we are planning a significant increase of lubricants product...

Briefly Noted

Poma Distributingwill marketBP Lubricants USAsCastrolbranded automotive and heavy duty lubricants throughout southern California.Fitz Chemnow representsG.H. Chemicals zinc oxide products in the central U.S.Eastman Chemicalopened a specialty fluids testing lab in Singapore for its Therminol heat transfer fluids and Skydrol aviation hydraulic fluids.