Chemical companies BASF and Troy Corp. recently announced price increases for their chemical products used in synthetic lubricants and metalworking fluids, respectively. BASF announced Dec. 18 it raised its prices for neopentylglycol and trimethylolpropane in Europe by 0.06 (U.S. 8 cents) per kilogram each immediately or as allowed by contract. The Ludwigshafen, Germany-based company in October raised prices on each of the two chemicals by 190 (U.S. $250) per metric ton, citing sharp increases...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. is likely to greenlight a Group II base oil plant to come onstream in 2013, with net additional capacity of 5,500 barrels per day, and an expansion of its naphthenics refinery in 2009 to add nearly 1,000 b/d. Both expansions are under final evalution, a company executive told an industry conference here, in his report on base oil supply and demand in Latin America. In addition, Luiz Antonio Correa Dias, specialty products trading coordinator at ...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Bright stock undersupply is no temporary phenomenon, its the wave of the future, an industry consultant warned. A variety of heavy synthetic base oils and heavy naphthenics will help fill the supply gap, but polyisobutene, PIB, will be used to replace the vast majority of the shortfall over the next decade. Group I base stock plant shutdowns will erode bright stock supplies by more than 10 percent of current supply by 2015, Geeta Agashe, director of Kline & Co.s Pe...

U.S. lubricant sales volumes in the third quarter of 2006 fell 5.1 percent compared to the same period of 2005, according to the latest sales data from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. The organization Dec. 20 released its Quarterly Lubricant Sales Survey showing that volumes for the third quarter fell across all major sectors of the market, though the grease sales decrease was negligible. The report uses 2002 as the base year. An index value of 100 represents the average qua...