NEW YORK – Energy markets, including crude oil prices, base oil prices and refining margins, are cyclical, and tend to move together in response to common stimuli, an industry expert told last weeks ICIS Pan-American Base Oils & Lubricants Conference. Expect a soft landing from todays cyclic peak over the next three to five years, he predicted, with both crude and base oil prices likely falling 30 to 40 percent. Today, were in a perfect storm for high energy prices, said Blake Eskew, ...

Saudi Total Lubricants Co., orSatlub, a joint venture of Total and Al Zahid Group, on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with developer Emaar, The Economic City (Emaar.E.C.), to lease land in King Abdullah Economic Citys industrial zone on which to build Totals first lubricant blending plant in Saudi Arabia. According to Dubai-based Emaar.E.C.s announcement, the state-of-the-art plant will be commissioned in two years, and will use fully automated technologies. The initial production ca...

SEVILLE, Spain – Customizing rerefined base oils and opening new niche markets are key targets for Europes rerefining industry, Christian Hartmann, honorary president of GEIR (Groupement Europen de l’Industrie de la Rgnration), the European rerefining industry section of the Independent Union of the European Lubricants Industry, told the UEIL 2007 Congress last month. Europes rerefining sector employs about 3,500 (including waste oil collection and administration), and puts out 450,0...

BASF said it will raise prices for polyalcohols used in production of synthetic lubricants, Kraton Polymers has announced price increases for polymers used in lubricants, Hercules Inc. has added a raw material surcharge to the price of a chemical used to produce synthetic polyol esters, and Texas Petrochemicals has raised prices for its polyisobutylene product line that is used in lubricant and fuel additives. BASF announced on Friday it will raise prices immediately, or as contracts allow, for ...

Cognis functional products business unit – which includes its synthetic lubricants, mining technology, AgroSolutions and polymers, coatings and inks businesses – on Thursday reported sales of 665 million (U.S. $977 million) for the first nine months of 2007, up 3.4 percent from 643 million in the year-earlier period. On an organic basis – meaning sales excluding the negative effects of foreign currencytransactions andof acquisitions and divestitures – the functional produ...