Texas Petrochemicals Inc. on Monday confirmed plans to more than double its current production of polyisobutylene by mid-2008 at its Houston plant, to meet growing demands fueled largely by the products use in lubricant and fuel additives. Current capacity at the facility is more than 65,000 metric tons per year. The company said it has awarded contracts for engineering and construction of the scheduled expansion, which has received final approval from its board of directors. According to Texas ...

Maxum Petroleum Inc., wholly-owned subsidiary of SPI Petroleum LLC, has acquired lubricant and fuel distributor Farmington Oil Co. in New Mexico and a lubricant blending plant from Esso Standard Oil of Panama. Terms of the deals were not disclosed. Through one of its operating subsidiaries, Simons Petroleum, Maxum took over assets and operations of Farmington Oil Co., a lubricant and fuel distributor in Farmington, N.M. It serves industrial and commercial markets in four states – Arizona, ...

South Korean base oil refiner S-Oil reported a decline in profits for its lubricants segment during the third quarter, compared to a year earlier. According to the companys third quarter investor relations presentation, S-Oils lubricants division reported a 26.1 percent decline in operating income for the three months ending Sept. 30, to 57 billion Korean won (U.S. $61.9 million), down from 86 billion won ($93.6 million) during the year-earlier period. Revenue for the lubricants segment fell by ...

SMF Energy Corp., formerly Streicher Mobile Fueling, on Thursday said it reached agreement with Chevron Products Co. to expand its Texaco lubricant marketing area to include the metropolitan San Antonio market as well as those counties abutting the I-10 corridor between San Antonio and Houston in Texas. Wayne Wetzel, SMFs senior vice president, lubricants, said the San Antonio area consistsprimarily of commercial markets. We currently do mobile fueling in that area, so weve actually been selling...

Dow Biocides has announced price increases for biocides used in metalworking fluids, and Dow Chemical has announced a price hike on a type of glycol used in textile lubricants. Dow Biocides, a Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based business unit of Dow Chemical, Monday announced it is raising list and off-list prices for its solid DBNPA line and its entire glutaraldehyde product portfolio by 10 cents per pound in North America and 10 percent for the rest of the world. The price increase will be effective Jan...