Adrian Brown is away.

Century Refineries Pvt. has sold its land and unfinished rerefinery in Bay City, Texas, and agreed to acquire an 8 million gallon terminal near Annapolis, Md., where it will build a facility instead. The Karnataka, India-based rerefiner had been building a $1.7 million rerefinery near Bay City and had planned to start rerefining around 8 million gallons per year of used oil for vacuum gas oil production by January 2014, along with base oils in the future. Centurys plans have since changed, co-ow...

Total plans to shut down API Group I production at its base oil plant in Gonfreville, France, to focus on production of higher quality base oils for use in automotive engine oil, according to multiple news reports last week. By deadline, Total did not respond to Lube Reports requests for comment. At a works council meeting Nov. 21, Total was to notify worker unions of its plan to modernize specialty products at the Normandy site, Reuters reported Nov. 19, attributing to a Total spokesman. The Go...

Japanese petroleum heavyweight JX Nippon Oil & Energy plans to set up a wholly-owned lube oil sales company in Mexico by January 2015 to serve growing demand there. JX Nippon Oil & Energy Mexico S.A. de C.V., will be established in Mexico City with 2 million pesos (U.S. $147,000) in capital and will be directed by Motoshi Sunami., the president of JX Nippon Oil & Energy USA Inc. The new company is expected to sell lube oils in Mexico and surrounding Central and South American coun...

SKF inaugurated its expanded lubrication systems manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic on Nov. 19. The expansion created an additional 200 jobs at the location, taking the total to 500, SKF spokesman Theo Kjellberg told Lube Report. Kjellberg said the expansion added 8,000 square meters of additional buildings, including warehousing and manufacturing space. It adds additional capacity, which is an important part of our strategy to continue to meet demand for our automated lubrication syst...

Gazprom Neft Lubricants signed a marine oil supply deal and has started to offer marine lubes in bulk quantities at a key Baltic Sea passenger port in St. Petersburg, Russia. We are the first supplier of marine oils in bulk quantities at the Marine Faade port. The first vessel that bunkered there and called for our oils is the Marco Polo cruise ship, Gazprom said in a Nov. 11 press release. This new service by Gazprom Neft Lubricants allows our customers to cut their servicing time, while it sig...