Fuchs Petrolub AG said yesterday that its second-quarter profit increased 37 percent year-to-year, largely due to improved performance in Europe and more efficient operations. The Mannheim, Germany company, the worlds largest independent lubricant manufacturer, said sales revenue for the three months ended June 30 was Euro 280 million (U.S. $346 million), up from Euro 259 million during the same period of 2003. Fuchs said sales showed strong growth in all geographic regions, although the impact ...

Motiva made a big splash in the base oil market this summer when it announced plans for an enormous 13,700-barrel-per-day expansion at its Port Arthur, Texas, base oil plant. The company is being much more low-key, however, about a smaller but significant production increase that has already occurred. The company – a joint venture between Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Refining Inc. – confirmed last week that capacity at the 22,000-b/d Group II plant increased after a maintenance turnaround...

Chemical companies are continuing to raise prices on lubricant additives. Crompton Corp., Ciba Specialty Chemicals and Dow Chemical Co. all announced markups within the past two weeks. Cromptons Petroleum Additives Business on Monday imposed a surcharge of 8.6 cents per pound on diphenylamine-based antioxidants sold under the Naugalube brand. The Middlebury, Conn., company said the charge was due to rising benzene costs. The price of benzene rose from $2.60 per gallon to $3.85 per gallon in the ...

Base stocks are crucial components of all finished lubricants. With the base stock percentage of a finished lubricant ranging from 80 to 90 percent, the selection of base stocks is key. These essential ingredients are not commodities and their impact on finished lubricant performance should not be overlooked. At ExxonMobil, we like to say that a finished lubricants integrity is defined by its base stock. As finished lubricant specifications become more stringent, conventional API Group I separat...