With the new GF-4 gasoline engine oil upgrade now virtually certain to be approved later this year, industrywide interest has turned sharply to the details of API SM, the companion Service Category which will parallel GF-4 and replace the current API SL engine oil category. The issues surrounding SM are more numerous and complex than they were for earlier categories. And as a recent meeting shows, backward compatibility of the new oils remains a nagging concern. The GF-4 specification was develo...

In a surprise move on Oct. 3, Indias Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment came up with a proposal to split Indian Oil Corp., Indias only Fortune 500 company and the worlds 17th largest oil company, and to privatize its marketing network (or a major chunk thereof) through strategic sale or public issue. IOCs 8,000-strong gasoline station chain constitutes 52 percent of the Indian network, and the company has 42 percent of countrys lubricant market. Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie informed an a...

Specialty chemical company H&R Wasag AG will buy BPs European specialty products business, including its base oil refinery in Neuhof, Germany, the two companies announced Friday. BP will keep its lubricant blending plant in Neuhof, a suburb of Hamburg, and the refinery acquired by H&R will supply it with 40,000 metric tons of base oil per year, the companies said. H&R added that future agreements could increase that volume somewhat, but stated that most of the yield from the 5,000...

Houghton International recently sold its ferrous wiredrawing lubricants division to North American Lubricants and Chemicals Inc., a small start-up formed earlier this year. The companies did not disclose terms of the transaction, which included a plant in Lyon, Mississippi. North American was serving as a Houghton distributor before the sale, which was completed during the summer, and learned that the industrial lube company was looking to sell its ferrous wiredrawing division. Evidently they ha...