California is earning a reputation for the toughest environmental regulations and enforcement in the country, and auto parts retailer AutoZone now knows its wrath. The California attorney general and the offices of the district attorneys of San Bernardino, Monterey, San Diego and San Joaquin counties announced a $1.5 million settlement with AutoZone Inc. requiring the company to overhaul its handling of hazardous material and waste products – including used motor oil – and its pricin...

Last week Sinopec officially produced its first barrel of lubricants in Singapore. The Chinese government-owned oil companys new lubricants manufacturing operation in Singapore is its first offshore manufacturing base, a Singapore Economic Development Board official said last week. It is noteworthy that Sinopec will be using ItalSing and AP Oil to produce its branded lubricant products in Singapore, said Chua Taik Him, assistant managing director of the economic development board. Both are Singa...

Total U.S. lubricant sales volumes in the first quarter of 2007 fell 5.7 percent from the same period of 2006, according to data released by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Released on June 11, the NPRAs Quarterly Index of Lubricant Sales showed that the first quarter decline was led by grease sales, which saw an 11.7 percent drop in volumes compared to the year-ago quarter. In the automotive lubricant segment, sales volumes slipped 6 percent, industrial lubes were off by 5...

L&T Recoil Oy has awarded consulting and engineering firm Poyry a 1.5 million (U.S. $2 million) contract to handle engineering services for an oil rerefining project planned in Hamina, Finland. Our target is Group II, L&T Recoil managing director Kai Lofgren told Lube Report. The plant will sell its base oil within Finland and export to other countries as well, according to Lofgren. Finland is a very small consumer of base oils, he noted. In September 2006, Finnish company Lassila ...

BASF Corp. and Cognis Olechemicals LLC recently announced price increases forcertain chemical products used in lubricants. BASF announced June 4 it would increase list and off-list selling prices for neopentylglycol in the United States, Canada and Mexico by 3 cents per pound effective July 1, or as contracts allow. We are not attributing this increase to any one cause, BASF spokesman William Pagano told Lube Report. The NEOL brand neopentylglycol is used to manufacture diester resins used in th...