The state of California is stepping up its enforcement of a law requiring marketers of API SA and SB engine oils to label them as obsolete and potentially harmful to modern engines. Over the past few months, the state Department of Food and Agricultures Division of Measurement Standards has been quarantining containers found in retail stores with improper labels. The law has won favorable comments, even from those nabbed by it. Still, those same companies predict the campaign will do little to d...

Indias Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd., part of the Gulf Oil International family, last week formed a joint venture with Oil Bangladesh Ltd. to blend and market the Gulf brand of lubricants in Bangladesh. Gulf Oil Corporation holds a 51 percentstake in the new company, christened Gulf Oil Bangladesh Ltd. andheadquartered in Dacca, while Oil Bangladesh Ltd. controls the rest. This is the culmination of a relationship formed in 1999 when Gulf appointed Oil Bangladesh assole distributor to market its pro...

Dover Chemical Corp. says its newly swelled share of the chlorinated paraffin market shouldnt be too big for antitrust regulators. But Pioneer Companies says Dovers dominance should make Pioneer more popular with metalworking fluid blenders. Dovers president said last week that it expects no objections from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over its acquisition of Ferro Corp.s Keil Chemical Division, which combined the two largest North American producers of chlorinated paraffins. Pioneer, the c...