Quaker Chemical Corp. reported its net income for 2004 fell 39 percent from the previous year, dragged down by higher raw material costs and increased selling and administrative expenses. Management predicted a rebound for 2005 – hinging partly on hopes that raw material costs will ease – and added that the company remains on an acquisition bent. The Conshohocken, Pa., company said Feb. 17 that it raked in record sales revenue of $400.7 million last year, compared with $340.2 millio...

Cooper Power Systems Inc. and Cargill Industrial Oils and Lubricants last week announced an international expansion of their six-month-old alliance covering a soybean-based transformer oil. Cargill will begin manufacturing Coopers Envirotemp FR3 at facilities around the world in order to meet growing demand, the companies said. A global manufacturer of equipment for electrical networks, Houston-based Cooper developed Envirotemp FR3 and pitches it as more effective and environmentally safer than ...

LONDON — Last year may not have seen any mega-deals, but the trend toward consolidation of the global base oil industry continued. In addition, 4 million tons per year of new base oil capacity was announced, while plant closures and disposals removed about 1.1 million tons per year of capacity, an industry expert said. Stephen Ames, principal of SBA Consulting of Pepper Pike, Ohio, provided a retrospective of 2004 at the ICIS-LOR World Base Oils Conference here on Feb. 17. Last years key m...

In a move that bodes ill for buyers of electrical transformer oils, Nynas Naphthenics AB imposed allocations Friday due to operational problems at its naphthenic base oil plant in Nynashamn, Sweden. Nynas is the worlds largest supplier of transformer oils, and observers said its problems are bound to exacerbate existing supply shortages. Its a big deal because theyre such a big supplier, and the market was already so tight, one U.S. marketer said. They go all over the world. Nynas said it has no...