Volume 2 Issue 4

Lubrizol Buys Defoamer Business

Continuing to build its defoamer business by acquisition, The Lubrizol Corp. announced last week that it has bought Kabo Unlimited Inc. The acquisition of the Cheyenne, Wyo., chemical company comes just over a year after Lubrizols purchase of Ross Chem Inc. and makes Lubrizol one of the five largest defoamer producers in the United States. Kabo was a privately held business with 33 employees and annual revenues of approximately $14 million. Ross Chem, of Fountain Inn, S.C., had 55 employees and ...

Japan's Group III Appetite Expected to Grow

OSTFILDERN, Germany – Like their counterparts in North America and Europe, Japan’s lubricant companies are struggling with a mature, low-growth market and growing technological and environmental demands. Yet Japan, the world’s third-largest lubricants-consuming country, remains solidly rooted in conventional Group I, solvent-refined base oils, while use of Group II and higher base oils has blossomed in North America and Europe. This is about to change, predicts Jinichi Igarash...

API Agrees to Automakers' Proposal

The American Petroleum Institute has agreed in principle with a proposal by automakers to modify the process for adopting engine oil quality upgrades. Members of both the auto and lubricants industries, however, emphasized that it remains to be seen how well the amended process will work. In late 2000, the International Lubricants Standardization and Approval Committee, which represents U.S. and Japanese automakers,proposed a modification in the new category development process. They blamed that...