The Lubrizol Corp. announced yesterday that earnings per share increased 20 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002 vs. the fourth quarter of 2001. Revenues for the quarter totaled $498 million, a 13 percent increase over the fourth quarter 2001. The Wickliffe, Ohio-based additives giant attributed its fourth-quarter earnings growth to strong shipment volume and an unusually low tax rate, partially offset by higher operating expenses. Total shipment volume increased 16 percent over the fourth qua...

U.S. demand for synthetic lubricants and functional fluids — not including the hangdog category of antifreeze — will enjoy 7.2 percent annual growth for the next four years, expanding into a $1.7 billion market, says a new study from Freedonia Group Inc. Antifreeze, however, is seen as having a chilling effect on this sunny outlook. Largely based on glycol chemistries, heat transfer is a mature, commoditized market which actually shrank 1 percent a year during the late 1990s. It will...

For the past two months, the global lubricant industry has felt the pinch of civil unrest in Venezuela. A strike that sidelined the national oil company of the worlds fifth-largest oil exporter has been blamed for a run-up in crude oil prices. Naphthenic base oil refiners around the world lost their largest feedstock supplier. Latin America found itself without one of its chief sources of paraffinic base oils. But the difficulties for the industry outside Venezuela have paled in comparison to th...