Evonik RohMax Additives GmbH yesterday announced the acquisition of the oil additives business of DOS, a producer of methacrylates. Terms were not disclosed. Under the agreement, RohMax acquires DOSs customer base, intellectual property and polymerization kettles. Evonik transformed DOSs oil additives business into a new company, OOO Prisadki, which will continue making the same methacrylates under a tolling agreement with Evoniks Russian subsidiary, OOO Evonik Chimia. RohMax officials called ...

A 166 foot offshore oil supply vessel sank next to an oil platform 16 miles from Nikiski, Alaska, on Thursday, taking with it roughly 700 gallons of various lube oils on board. According to a U.S. Coast Guard report, the ship – called the Monarch – was transporting six stainless steel totes, three plastic drums and eight steel drums containing miscellaneous lube oils and chemicals. In addition to the lube oils, the ship carried 34,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The cause of the sinkin...

ExxonMobil Lubricants and Specialties is lifting U.S. sales allocations for all automotive synthetic products effective today, and is lifting or increasing allocations on a variety of industrial synthetic lubricants and greases. This is a result of EMLSs primary polyalphaolefin (PAO) supplier, ExxonMobil Chemical, resuming operations at its PAO production facility in Beaumont, Texas, in December 2008, ExxonMobil spokeswoman Prem Nair told Lube Report. ExxonMobil informed customers it will lift...

Rohm and Haas yesterday said it will eliminate about 900 jobs and idle or close underutilized plants as part of measures to cut costs in response to a slowing economy and widespread market weakness. The Philadelphia-based industrial chemicals company, which has about 16,500 employees, said the layoffs will impact positions across all of its regions and businesses except its salt division. Yesterdays announcement is on the heels of cost-saving actions in June that included cutting 925 jobs. Roh...

Afton Chemical Corp. said its two new research and development facilities in Japan and China will develop more products, faster, for the Asia Pacific region. A new facility in Shanghai, China, will open early this year, and a new and expanded facility in Tsukuba, Japan, recently began operations. They will definitely be working on lubricant additives at both locations, Afton spokeswoman Lauren Ereio told Lube Report. Tsukuba is just outside of Tokyo. Aftons expanded center includes more than 3...

Its been another disappointing week for ship owners. Cargo volumes have remained obstinately low across the globe, and more or less the same total number of ships has no employment this week as last week. A few unfortunate vessels have even sat out the whole week idling at anchor. Routes out of Asia have been hardest hit. For most of 2008, high demand in the West for Asian chemicals caused freights to rocket. This week saw as much as 10 percent knocked off freights on some routes back to Europe ...