Idaho General Mines Inc. announced Monday that it has filed a plan of operations with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a key step in realizing its Mount Hope molybdenum project in Nevada. Mount Hope is one of the largest molybdenum-porphyry deposits in the world and, once in operation, the project will be the first large-scale, high-grade molybdenum mine placed in production in the United States in over 20 years. Molybdenum is used as a solid lubricant, a lubricant and grease additive,a catal...

Prices for lubricants and lubricant additives continue to rise. Albemarle Corp. said recently that it will hike antioxidant prices in North America by a whopping 30 percent, while Dow Chemical Co. announced increases of up to 45 cents per gallon on fire-resistant hydraulic fluids. Albemarles increase takes effect tomorrow and applies to lube and fuel antioxidants sold under the Ethanox brand name. The Richmond, Virginia-based specialty chemical supplier said prices for dilutions and blends under...

Refineries and petrochemical plants affected by the hurricanes that hit the U.S. Gulf Coast last summer and fall learned some valuable lessons, and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association has synthesized that experience in Hurricane Security Operations, a planning and crisis response guide that is available in PDF format from NPRA. In time for the official opening of the 2006 U.S. hurricane season at the beginning of this month, NPRA published its Hurricane Security Operations wh...

Four ExxonMobil distributors spanning the Midwest and Southeast announced last week that they have merged to become one of the largest lubricant distributors in the United States. Officials with newly formed PetroLiance LLC said the union is part of an industry trend toward consolidation and that the merged company should be able to better serve customers. Given the scale of this consolidation and the resources driving it, we believe this is a breakthrough alliance, said Chief Executive Officer ...

Editors note: Over the past year, the U.S. lubricant industry was buffeted by an unprecedented series of disruptions to supplies of raw materials. This week Lube Report begins a series of articles reporting on the strides made toward recovery – and the distance yet to go. It is widely accepted that the North American base oil market has never encountered as much trouble as it did from September 2005 to April 2006. During that period, a hurricane and fires caused five plant shutdowns of thr...