Add another name to the growing list of Pacific Rim companies hurrying to enter the premium base oil market. Formosa Petrochemical Corp. told Lube Report yesterday that it plans to open a 10,000 barrel-per-day plant on Taiwan by the end of 2007. The companys statement brings to five the number of API Group II and/or Group III projects that have opened this year or that are in the works. A Formosa Petrochemical official acknowledged that the field is becoming crowded but maintained that the locat...

Saudi Aramco this week denied news reports that it is considering a deal to sell part of its stake in S-Oil Corp. to a South Korean conglomerate. An Aramco spokesman told Lube Report that Saudi Arabias national oil company is retaining its 35 percent share of S-Oil, South Koreas third-largest refiner and the worlds second-largest supplier of Group III base oils. Saudi Aramco is not selling any of its stake in S-Oil, said Jamal Khiery, a spokesman in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Korean newspapers repor...

The new year will begin with new faces leading several of the lubricant industrys largest companies. Additive suppliers Infineum and Lubrizol have a new chief executive and chairman, respectively, while ChevronTexaco has appointed a new vice president for its base oil business. Infineum announced Monday that former ExxonMobil Chemical Co. executive Dominique Fournier has been appointed chief executive officer, replacing A.J. Tony Gaskell, who is retiring at the end of this month. Fournier has 28...

Petro-Canada announced last month that it has entered contracts with two European distributors – one to carry industrial lubricants in Italy, the other to distribute food-grade lubes in northern Germany. The Italian company is Emanuele Mascherpa S.p.A., a family-owned importer of chemicals, machine tools and mechanical components. Mascherpa officials said the link with Petro-Canada should help their company expand into the industrial maintenance sector and continue growing as a distributio...