Ashland Inc. announced Monday that the Internal Revenue Service has decided not to give a tax ruling that the company had set as a prerequisite for its proposed sale of its 38 percent stake in the Marathon Ashland Petroleum joint venture. Ashland said it will probably keep its MAP assets – at least for the time being – including a Group I base oil plant in Catlettsburg, Ky. If the IRS decision does doom the divestiture, it will also forestall a significant restructuring plan by Ashla...

Questions regarding the reliability of the Sequence VIB (“Six B”) engine test, which is supposed to demonstrate the fuel economy properties of passenger car engine oils and is required to license the new GF-4 oils, have been sent back down the pipeline for a closer look by ASTM’s Sequence VIB Surveillance Panel — the group which first raised a red flag regarding the test’s performance three months ago. On Sept. 17, Charlie Leverett of PerkinElmer Automotive Research...

Life is about to become a lot simpler for packagers and users of grease in Europe, thanks to industry acceptance of a new standard that streamlines the variety of package types. The first step was taken months ago when the European Lubricating Grease Institute adopted a standard that its Grease Packaging Working Group had spent approximately seven years developing. More recently, officials said, the standard has actually gone into use as large marketers and users agreed to recognize it. The big ...

Prices for chemicals used by the lubricants industry continued to rise the past week. This time, the markups affected phenolic antioxidants sold by two marketers, Albemarle Corp. and Ciba Specialty Chemicals, both of which cited sharp upticks in costs for raw materials, transportation and packaging. Albemarle said Dec. 15 that it will increase prices on lubricant and fuel antioxidantsby up to 15 percent. The changes take effect Jan. 10. Ciba said Thursday that it will raise prices on its antiox...