Adrian Brown is away this week.

Sales revenues at U.S. fast lube facilities jumped 20 percent from a year ago, according to National Oil & Lube News 2015 Tops in the Industry Ranking. The revenue increase occurred even though the total number of fast lube facilities was virtually unchanged. The magazines survey counts fast lube chains, as well as oil-change plus facilities that provide oil changes and some other types of auto maintenance services. This years report covered 16,907 sites that brought in $13.7 billion. Last ...

LONDON – The global white oils market will show moderate growth, expanding to 1.6 million metric tons by 2023, consultancy Kline & Co. projected. Current demand is estimated at about 1.5 million tons, Milind Phadke, a director in the consultancys energy practice, told the ICIS Base Oils & Lubricants Conference here last month. Major markets include Asia-Pacific – China, India, South Korea and Taiwan – the United States and Europe – mainly Germany, France, the Unit...

Gazpromneft-Lubricants is pushing to enter the markets of China and Libya; for the former it plans to open local production by 2019, in the latter it is trying to land a large supply deal. Until now in China we supplied base oils only, but not anymore, Alexander Trukhan, Gazpromneft-Lubricants general director, told Lube Report. We already signed deals with two local distributors from Hong Kong and Shanghai, and in the coming months we plan to ship finished products there. Both companies pledge ...

Bridgestone Retail Operations selected Shell Lubricants Americas as its supplier of automotive lubricants, starting Jan. 1, 2016, the companies announced recently. Bridgestone is not disclosing detailed terms and conditions of the contract. As part of the agreement, Shell will supply Bridgestone retail stores with products such as Quaker State, Pennzoil Platinum and Rotella branded engine oils. The tire and automotive service centers owned and operated by Bridgestone currently use ConocoPhillips...

BASF announced plans March 4 to significantly expand its production capacity for 20 specialty amines at its chemical complex in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The company said it will invest a double-digit million euro amount in expanding its current specialty amines production facilities, gradually bringing them on stream by early 2017. The specialty amines are used for manufacturing of coatings, lubricants, crop protection products and pharmaceuticals. Examples of BASF amines used in lubricants manufa...

Perstorp completed an expansion last week at its Stenusgund, Sweden, plant that will enable the Malm-based specialty chemicals company to produce n-valeric acid and the fatty alcohol 2-propylheptanol, which can both be used as intermediates in synthetic lubricant formulations.