Volume 2 Issue 23

ConocoPhillips Lubes Chief Named

Phillips Petroleum Co. said that Tom Liberti has been named to head the lubricants business that would be created by its proposed merger with Conoco. He is currently manager of lubricants for Phillips, a position to which he was appointed when the company bought Tosco Corp. last year. Announced in November, the merger of Phillips and Conoco is under review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The companies expect to complete the deal and create ConocoPhillips during the second half of this year...

Farmland Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Agricultural cooperative Farmland Industries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday. The Kansas City, Mo., company said it will sell non-core assets, but a spokeswoman said it has not decided if its grease business will be among them. There will be some nonstrategic assets that are put up for sale but they have not been specifically identified at this time, spokeswoman Sherlyn Manson said. Farmland initially agreed last fall to sell its Kansas City grease plant to CHS Cooperatives as ...

Fuchs' Profit Jumps 35 Percent

Fuchs Petrolub AG reported last week that its first quarter net income increased 35.3 percent, due primarily to consolidation of its ownership of a former German joint venture with Shell. Net income for the first three months of 2002 was Euro 4.6 million (U.S. $4.3 million), up from Euro 3.4 million during the same period a year earlier. Sales rose 13.1 percent to Euro 265.7 million. The Mannheim, Germany, company said that 10.8 percent of the sales growth was external, mostly the result of the ...

Can Diesel Avoid a Pile-up?

Diesel engine oil formulators are by now well accustomed to revising their recipes. They do so on a regular basis, not only as a matter of product improvement, but more often to comply with requirements of the auto industry and regulators. According to one lubricant additive company, however, formulators in the next few years will have to make wholesale changes unlike any the market has seen for decades. Chevron Oronites William Kleiser told the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers ...