Turbulence in the financial markets rattled buyers confidence throughout Europe and Asia, and – despite withstanding the pressure best – even the U.S. now has less business to go around. Americas Space from the U.S. Gulf to Europe continues to be in short supply, with styrene again in the vanguard. Rates for a simple 5,000-ton package from Houston to Rotterdam for the second half of September can be fixed in the mid $60s per metric ton, but prompter dates will lift the level into mid...

Lubrizol Corp. agreed to license polyisobutylene manufacturing technology from South Koreas Daelim Industrial and will use it to expand its PIB plant in Deer Park, Texas. Lubrizol declined to discuss the cost or size of the project but said it should be finished in about three years. Wickliffe, Ohio-based Lubrizol already makes conventional PIBs at Deer Par, but officials said they wanted the Daelim technology because it makes it possible to produce conventional and highly reactive PIBs at the s...

BASF last week announced the discovery of a half-ton WWII-era U.S. bomb at its Ludwigshafen, Germany site, which has multiple plants producing chemicals used in lubricants manufacturing. A disarming is scheduled to take place in late September. The 500-kilogram (1,100 lbs) bomb represents no danger for employees or neighbors, and production is not affected, said BASF spokeswoman Jennifer Moore-Braun. It was found during the probing we always conduct when building on the site, Moore-Braun told Lu...

Trucking will remain the dominant mode of freight transportation in the United States over the next 11 years, with the number of Class 8 trucks projected to grow from nearly 3.6 million in 2015 to almost 4 million by 2026, according to a new report by American Trucking Associations. An Aug. 17 Transports Topic report echoed that trend in the present, citing WardsAuto.com data that found Class 8 retail truck sales climbed to 23,383 in July, up 24 percent from a year earlier and topping the 20,000...

Safety-Kleen will pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a $90,000 penalty to resolve violations of federal oil pollution prevention regulations found during a January 2014 inspection at the Newark, Calif., rerefinery that parent company Clean Harbors acquired from Evergreen Oil in September 2013. Although the company does not necessarily concur with the findings, consistent with our standard policy, we have agreed to take all steps necessary to comply with the order and to take such other...