Chevron has slowed construction on its 25,000 barrels per day Pascagoula, Miss., base oil plant to take advantage of the current lower cost environment, a Chevron official said. It now estimates completion in 2013 instead of 2011. In August last year, Chevron announced it had submitted an environmental permit application to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for construction of the premium base oil facility at the refinery. The company said the facility will focus on the North ...

Henkel last week informed the 89 employees at Acheson Colloids Port Huron, Mich., plant that the site will close at the end of 2010, due to severe underutilization and some equipment becoming obsolete. The plants products include lubricants and lubricant application equipment. Acheson Colloids solid lubricant additives are dispersions containing graphite, molybedenum disulfide, PTFE or boron nitride. The dispersions are used in gear oils, conveyor chain lubricants, greases, engine oils or treat...

Independent refiner Calumet Specialty Products reported a net loss for the second quarter, Quaker Chemicals second quarter earnings went down from a year earlier, and Fuchs Petrolubs net profit for the first six months of 2009 declined from a year ago. Calumet Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP last week reported a $26 million net loss for the quarter ending June 30, compared to net income of $41.8 million in the year-earlier period. Sales revenue reached $444 million, down 33.8 percent fro...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – You need investment, at least U.S. $50 million for an 80,000 ton-per-year plant, and you need a reliable supply of used oil, but despite these challenges, the present may be the right time for Asias nascent rerefining industry to take off, according to an industry expert. Christian Hartmann, CEO of Puralube Holding GmbH in Munich, Germany, described the status of and potential for rerefining in selected Asia-Pacific countries, and highlighted the advantages that m...

The fortunes of the European coastal markets were revived with an influx of new business that caused space to tighten. Asia too has benefited from a surge in chemical and palm oil cargoes, lifting freight rates. Certain routes in the United States too have unseasonably tightened for August. U.S. Gulf of Mexico Freight rates on the majority of routes out of the U.S. Gulf recorded increases this week, in spite of more ships turning up with import cargoes. Particularly busy routes are U.S. Gulf to...