Volume 7 Issue 36

Sinopec Sees Profits, Competition Rising

With Chinas major lubricant suppliers raising prices, and raw material prices and supply stabilizing, Sinopec predicts growing profits for Chinas lubricants sector. At the same time, fierce competition in the countrys high-end lubricant market pressures smaller players, forcing small blenders out of the market. Asias largest lubricant supplier, Sinopec is rebranding its lubes as it expands beyond Chinas borders and nearly doubling its grease production. Sinopec Deputy General Manager Li Liangyao...

EPA Expands PCB Probe

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it asked an Illinois natural gas distribution company to widen its search for PCBs after the company, Ameren Corp., found the chemicals at several locations. The PCBs are believed to have come from natural gas compressor lubricants and valve sealants – common applications for PCBs before the United States banned production and most uses of the chemicals in the 1970s. EPA and Ameren agree that the PCBs found by the company did not co...

Ineos Boosts PAO Capacity

Ineos Oligomers last week announced a 10 percent increase of its global production capacity for polyalphaolefins through expansion at its two PAO plants, in Texas and Belgium. This capacity addition represents the first phase of a previously announced capital investment program that will ultimately add over 50 thousand metric tons per year of PAO production capacity by 2010, said Jeff Seed, operations director. Ineos Oligomers has PAO manufacturing facilities in LaPorte, Texas and Feluy, Belgium...

$10.4 Billion Buys a Lot of Bearings

U.S. ball, roller and plain bearing demand will rise 3.1 percent per year through 2011 to $10.4 billion, according to a new Freedonia Group study. Freedonia, a Cleveland-based market research firm, forecasts that the strongest market gains through 2011 will be posted by unmounted plain bearings because of a renewed strength in an acceleration in aerospace equipment output growth and an upturn in motor vehicle production driving demand. Motor vehicle production and aerospace equipment output wil...

AOCA Spotlights Quick Lube Costs

What do the most profitable quick lubes do differently from their poorer brethren? According to a survey released this week by the Automotive Oil Change Association, higher profit firms give a few more discounts, buy a little more advertising, and spend a little less on the lubes and other goods sold. But the most significant difference is operating expense control. The 2007 AOCA Cost of Doing Business Survey shows that high profit firms spend 52.5 percent of total sales revenues for operating ...

SeaSpray Lands on U.S. Energys Shores

U.S. Energy Initiatives Corp. has acquired GreenTree Spray Technologies LLC – known as SeaSpray Aerosol Inc. – from Nano Chemical Solutions Inc. in a shares and note transaction. SeaSprays products include lubricants for the federal government, and consumer products under the NanoOil name. The companies executed closing documents on Friday, and expect a final closing on Aug. 31. U.S. Energy is based in Tampa, Fla. Mark Clancy, a board member and one of two principal owners of U.S. En...

Moly Drilling Project Under Way in Ontario

MetalCorp Ltd. last week announced the start of drilling at its Playter molybdenum-silver project on the western end of its Big Lake property in northern Ontario, Canada. Molybdenum is used as a solid lubricant, a lubricant and grease additive, a catalyst in petroleum refining and in the steel and stainless industries, where it is an important additive for strength and corrosion resistance. According to MetalCorp, the price of molybdenum oxide has gone from $3 per pound to $30 per pound over t...