Volume 3 Issue 73

Castrol, ExMo Set Pace on GF-4

Castrol Consumer North American confirmed last week that it will offer API-licensed GF-4 motor oils beginning Aug. 2, immediately after the American Petroleum Institute begins licensing oils that meet the standard. In doing so, the company became the first major lubricant marketer to state a schedule for meeting the latest passenger car motor oil upgrade. ExxonMobil told Lube Report yesterday that it began supplyingGF-4 quality oils to car makers for factory fill last month and that it will offe...

Ciba Rolls Out Vintage Dibasics

TORONTO – Ciba Specialty Chemicals has reached an exclusive agreement to market dibasic acid corrosion inhibitors produced at a new plant built by Cathay Biotechnology in Jining, China, the companies announced last week. In a May 17 presentation at the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers annual meeting, officials claimed that the plant is a unique source of dibasics because it makes them using fermentation. The combination of Cathays novel manufacturing process and Cibas tech...

Arizona Chemical Streamlines Production

Arizona Chemical Co. announced last week that it will expand its plant in Dover, Ohio, and close another in Picayune, Miss., in an effort to streamline operations. Both plants make dimer, monomer and ester materials used as chemical intermediates and corrosion inhibitors in metalworking fluids and lubricants, as well as in other industries. Operations in Picayune will be moved to the Dover plant, except for production of a line of resin dispersion additives, which will be transferred to another ...

Fuchs, Orapi Post Quarterly Gains

Two European lubricant suppliers reported sizable improvements in their first quarter financial performance. Germanys Fuchs Petrolub AG said its net income for the three months ended March 31 was 51 percent higher than in the same period of 2003. Orapi, a French manufacturer of machine maintenance products, said its sales were up 27 percent. Fuchs, which is based in Mannheim, Germany, said May 14 that it turned a profit of Euro 9.2 million in the first quarter, compared with a profit of Euro 6.1...