Volume 16 Issue 40

SSY Base Oil Shipping Report

Adrian Brown is away.

Group III Growth Continues

API Group III base stock demand is expected to grow fastest through 2025, spurred by supply surplus and technical considerations, while Group I currently retains the largest demand share of the global base oil market, according to Kline & Co. Parsippany, N.J.-based consultancy Kline estimated global demand for lubricant base stocks in 2015 – including Group I, II, III and naphthenics – at 36 million metric tons. Despite continued reduction in market share, Group I is still the b...

California Kills Oil Drain Bill

A California bill that would have promoted longer engine oil drain intervals and placed further regulations on automotive service providers, including fast lubes, was vetoed last week by Gov. Jerry Brown, according to a trade organization that opposed the measure. The Automotive Oil Change Association said the governors veto of California Senate Bill 778 also took out a related proposal, Assembly Bill 873, which had been signed on Sept 30. AB 873 sought to regulate automotive service providers w...

The Growing Use of Group II Base Stocks

Base stocks are crucial components of all finished lubricants. With the base stock percentage of a finished lubricant ranging from 80 to 90 percent, the selection of base stocks is key. These essential ingredients are not commodities and their impact on finished lubricant performance should not be overlooked. At ExxonMobil, we like to say that a finished lubricants integrity is defined by its base stock. As finished lubricant specifications become more stringent, conventional API Group I separat...

Russian Base Oil, Slack Wax Exports Rebound

WARSAW – Russian base oil and slack wax exports are expected to rebound in 2016, driven by lower logistics costs, lower export duties and calm base oil market conditions, an industry insider said. Between 2010 and 2015, base oil exports from the country fell 35 percent to 940,000 metric tons thanks to a sour economy and international trade sanctions, Denis Varaksin, base oil and slack wax sales manager at the Berlin-based DYM Resources, told an industry event recently. The volumes dropped ...

Velocys Completes Oklahoma GTL Plant

Construction is finished on joint venture Envia Energys gas-to-liquids commercial reference plant in Oklahoma City. The plant will produce diesel, wax and naphtha. This included on-site loading of catalyst into Fischer-Tropsch reactors by Velocys with support from Pasadena, Texas-based Mourik, which specializes in catalyst handling. The capacity of the plant, which is adjacent to a landfill, has not been disclosed. Work on remaining pre-commissioning activities continues, and early commissioning...

Advonex Aims for Biobased Lube Production

Biochemical company Advonex International anticipates bringing its biobased feedstock to commercial scale by 2019 after receiving funds to develop a 1 metric ton per day pilot production facility in Canada. Advonex received just over 4.2 million Canadian dollars (U.S. $3.2 million) in funding for its three-year pilot program from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, a nonprofit foundation created by the Canadian government to finance clean technology projects in the country. According to t...

Valvoline IPO Closes

Ashland and Valvoline said Sept. 28 that Valvolines initial public offering of 34.5 million shares of its common stock closed at a price to the public of $22 per share – raising $759 million – including the underwriters full exercise of their option to purchase 4.5 million shares to cover over-allotments. After the IPOs completion, Ashland will own 170 million shares, representing 83 percent of total outstanding shares of Valvolines common stock. In September 2015, Covington, Kentucky-based Ashland announced it would spin off Valvoline of Lexington, Kentucky.

Briefly Noted

RelaDyne acquired Utah-based Cardwell Distributing, which distributes lubricants, fuels and diesel exhaust fluid from locations spanning Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Tyree Oil acquired Christenson Oils lubricants division in Portland, Oregon.