Private equity firm Riverside Co. recently acquired DuBois Chemicals, a specialty chemicals company whose products include industrial lubricants and metalworking fluids. The price was not disclosed. Since 2002, DuBois was part of Johnson Diversey Inc., a company in Racine, Wisc. A couple of years ago they determined what DuBois does wasnt a strategic fit for their long-term goals, Riverside partner Tim Gosline told Lube Report. Earlier this year they decided to sell that operation, so they put ...

Oxea yesterday outlined plans to produce butyric acid at its North American production site in Bay City, Texas, and to implement process improvements at its Marl and Oberhausen, Germany plants. Together, the changes are expected to expand Oxeas global production output of carboxylic acids by 25 to 30 percent. Carboxylic acids are chemical intermediates in a variety of applications, including production of lubricants and drying agents for coatings and paints. Also used in production of lubricant...

Saudi financial services firm Swicorp announced Saturday that it has invested an undisclosed amount in Algerian oil jobber Petroser to help fund new lubricant and bitumen plants. Petroser said in July that it was nearing completion on construction of a blending plant in Oran, Algeria. It pegged the cost of that facility at of 30 million (U.S. $47.4 million) and said it will have capacity to produce 40,000 metric tons of lubricants per year. BP is a partner in the project, but is contributing lu...

Distributors Rogers Petroleum Inc. and Kelso Oil Co. plan to join forces starting Dec. 1 to create one of the largest lubricant distributors in the southeastern United States, as the market continues a trend towards consolidation. Our industry has consolidated at the supplier level obviously, and now were seeing pretty substantial consolidation at the distributor level, LubriCorp CEO Mike Foltz told Lube Report. We felt that this would give us a better platform for growth as we look to acquire ...

Commercial production starts this week at Hydrodecs new transformer oil rerefinery in Canton, Ohio. The 22,000 square foot plant, built at a cost of $16 million to $17 million, has capacity of 8 million gallons per year, according to the company. Hydrodec on Oct. 8 announced the official opening of the plant, which had its startup on July 22, and received its first feedstock back in February. While it has been in operation in terms of commissioning, there has been nothing in terms of commercial...

DEARBORN, Mich. – Asthma? You bet. Dermatitis? Still an issue. Cancer? Problematic. Mycobacteria? Not always guilty! And what about those ultrafine particles? Stay tuned. These are some of the topics covered in presentations on the health effects of exposure to the metal removal fluid environment at the Metal Removal Fluids Symposium here last week. The MRF symposium, the first in over a decade, brought together more than 220 experts from industry, academia, government and labor to exchang...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — General Motors will introduce its new Global Engine Oil Specification in two years, for all GM model year 2011 gasoline-fueled vehicles worldwide. GM is considering but hasn’t finalized a licensing program for the new spec. GM Powertrain’s Eric R. Johnson, senior project engineer with the company’s Engine Oil Group in Pontiac, Mich., told the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association here on Monday that “GM is global. We need the same quali...