Volume 7 Issue 19

Valvoline, SK Ring Up First Quarter Earnings

Financial results for the quarter ending March 31 saw operating income on the rise at lubricant blender Valvoline, and another strong performance by the lubricants division of South Korean base oil refiner SK Corp. Valvoline parent company Ashland said the lube blender recorded operating income of $22.4 million for the three months ending March 31 – the second quarter of Ashlands 2007 fiscal year – up a whopping 1,020 percent from $2 million for the same period a year earlier. Valvol...

Lubrizol, Afton Formulate Solid First Quarters

Afton Chemical Corp. and Lubrizols Lubricant Additives segment last week each reported strong earnings for the quarter ending March 31. Lubrizols Lubricant Additives segment reported operating income of $101.4 million in the first quarter, up 36 percent from $74.4 million in the same period last year. That increase reflected progress in recovering higher raw material costs and other income associated with the sale of land near its Texas facilities, according to the Wickliffe, Ohio-based chemical...

Arkema Sheds Amines Operation

Chemical manufacturer Arkema has sold its specialty amines business in Riverview, Mich. to Ghent, Belgium-headquartered Taminco. The companies did not disclose terms of the transaction. Jim Bell, Arkema director of communications, told Lube Report the companies signed the sale contract on Monday, and the acquisition became effective yesterday. Eighty-eight employees at Riverview, and six in Philadelphia and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, are affected by the sale, Bell said. All have been offered...

Lubes: a 62 Billion-dollar Baby by 2015

You cant judge a book by its cover. Thats one thing Ken Furst, industry analyst for The Freedonia Group Inc., discovered while researching lubricants demand for World Lubricants, a new study from the Cleveland-based market research firm. Furst told Lube Report that the odd, somewhat counter-intuitive thing about the lubricants market is that volume can be a misleading statistic. Sometimes declining volume means that quality is increasing, meaning opportunities for suppliers of higher-value lubes...

Cross Oil Refinery Shuts Down

A vacuum distillation unit malfunction has halted production at Cross Oil Refining& Marketing Co.s 5,000 barrels per day naphthenic base oil plant in Smackover, Ark., where Cross is headquartered. The company yesterday began informing customers that it shut down the plant after operators were alerted to the malfunction on April 23. We averted a more serious problem by shutting down, and were actually in the process of repairing the unit as we speak, Vice President Lubes Marketing Larry Slag...