Fresh from its spin-off by Henkel, Cognis has unveiled a streamlined organizational structure aimed at increasing flexibility and speeding decision-making. The Synlubes bio-synthetic lubricant business is now part of Cognis Functional Products group, one of five new business units. Functional Products is headed by Guido Willems, who was formerly in charge of the old Organics Specialties unit, which also included the lubricant business. The companys Oleochemicals group, which provides basic chemi...

Already facing a tall task to finance its Sweetwater gas-to-liquids plant, Syntroleum Corp. has suffered another setback in the loss of bankrupt energy giant Enron as an equity investor. A Syntroleum official said recently that Enron had previously announced it would not fulfill its commitment to take a 13 percent stake in the project. Syntroleum is now looking for an alternative partner to invest in the plant, which would be the first commercial producer of gas-to-liquids base oils and other sp...

With final approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a trustee on Feb. 13 completed its sale of Texacos shares in the Equilon and Motiva partnerships to Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Refining Inc. The sale, for $2.26 billion in cash and assumption of $1.6 billion in liabilities, meets the FTCs biggest condition for its approval of the Chevron-Texaco merger, which went into effect Oct. 9. It also raises the curtain on Shells efforts to refashion its downstream operations in the United States. Be...