Fallbrook Technologies Inc. is trying to revolutionize the transmission industry, and Valvoline has signed on to help develop the fluids it needs to do so. The companies announced last week the signing of a trademark licensing and development agreement for fluids to be used in Fallbrooks NuVinci continuously variable planetary transmissions. Fallbrook, which is based in San Diego, claims that its technology offers simplicity, flexibility and economy to make it preferable to other continuously va...

LONDON – The lubricant additive market was tight last year, and now its even tighter, Lubrizols Dan Sheets told the ICIS World Base Oils Conference here Feb. 16. Sheets predicted that additives will stay tight for two to three more years, the worlds finished lubricant market will be flat over the next six years, and lubricant additive demand will grow slightly through 2012, about 1 percent per year, thanks to quality upgrades. Citing rising raw material costs and the accelerating pace of ...

Projecting growing European demand for Group II base stocks, Shell announced last week that it will supply significant volumes of Motiva products in Europe in the second quarter of this year. We will be bringing in significant volumes of Group II product, sufficient to meet our targeted customer needs, Shell Lubricants Jacky Freer, external affairs and media relations manager, told Lube Report yesterday. And, in terms of product availability, pending the successful launch of Motivas expansion, [...

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. announced last week that it plans to build a Group III base oil plant at its refinery in southwest India. The plant will have capacity of 250,000 metric tons per year and is scheduled to open in mid-2010. An official told Lube Report yesterday that the company wants captive base oil supply to support its venture into the lubricant market. This is part of a strategy to be in finished lubes by 2010, said the official, who spoke on condition that he not be...

Much of the North American lubricant industry is laboring under a barrage of disruptions that have batteredbase oil supply in recent months, but the white oils market may be hurting most of all. All three of the major U.S. suppliers are operating under force majeure declarations triggered by feedstock shortages. One of those suppliers, Sonneborn, has gone so far as to end its purchasing agreement with its supplier of paraffinic oils and has begun to produce them on its own. Another, Penreco, has...