Volume 3 Issue 65

Feds Demand Prompt GF-4 Rollout

In a March 2 Dear Manufacturer letter to auto companies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made clear its position on GF-4 motor oils: If automakers expect to base fuel-economy claims for their 2005 model year vehicles on GF-4 oils, theyd better ensure that oils meeting this newest specification are widely available when their new cars hit the road. Previously, EPA approved the automakers fuel economy claims based on GF-3 motor oils, which were first licensed in 2001. It later heard from ...

ChevronTexaco Buys Shell Sites

ChevronTexaco acquired a Bluefield, W.Va., lubricant blending plant and a lubricants training center in Houston from Shell Oil Co. late last year under an agreement that was part of Texacos 2002 divestiture of stakes in the Equilon and Motiva joint ventures, ChevronTexaco and Shell confirmed last week. The blending plant and training center had both been closed before ChevronTexaco bought them, and the company said it has no plans to reopen them. Shell also has an option to require ChevronTexaco...

API SM: Shorthand for Still Marooned?

On March 18 the American Petroleum Institutes Lubricants Committee met in Baltimore to discuss its proposed new gasoline engine oil service category, API SM. SM is needed as a global companion to the ILSAC GF-4 engine oil specification, which U.S. and Japanese automakers approved in mid-January. The Baltimore meeting showed, however, that SM remains marooned between two core philosophical issues – equivalency versus flexibility – and debate between these opposing concepts remains sha...

BP Hopes to Unload Alphaolefins

BP announced Monday that it is putting its linear alphaolefins and polyalphaolefins business on the sales block as it adopts a new strategy for its petrochemicals segment. Separately, Flint Hills Resources LLC announced yesterday that it has agreed to buy BPs performance chemicals unit, a manufacturer of maleic anhydride for the lubricants industry. BP and Chevron Phillips Chemical are the worlds two biggest producers of linear alphaolefins – about 20 percent of which are used to produce p...

Fire Chokes Sunocos Bright Stock

Bright stock production at Sunocos Tulsa, Okla., base oil plant was halted by a March 23 fire, but the company said it expects to resume operations next week. Officials declined to say whether deliveries had been affected. No one was injured by the blaze, which began at 10:45 a.m. at the refinerys propane deasphalting plant and which burned for a few hours. Sunoco did not say what caused the fire or provide a damage estimate. The company did say the fire was contained to the deasphalting unit an...

Fuchs Profits Jump 28 percent

Fuchs Petrolub AG announced last week that it had net income of Euro 30.9 million in 2003, an increase of 28 percent over 2002. The Mannheim, Germany, blender – the worlds largest independent lubricant supplier – said 2003 was its most profitable year ever despite being a down year for the industry as a whole. According to the companys estimates, worldwide lubricant demand dropped 0.9 percent last year. In a preliminary announcement of its financial performance, Fuchs said Thursday t...