Tatneft restarted polyalphaolefins production after an eight-year hiatus due to lack of feedstock supply and international sanctions imposed on a number of Russian oil majors. The Tatarstan company overcame these hurdles to get the 9,600 metric tons per year base oil plant based in Nizhnekamsk up and running, making it Russias only PAO facility.

Operations at the $49 million plant began in December 2003 but due to the lack of linear alpha olefin feedstock supplied by Nizhnekamskneftekhims nearby chemical complex, PAO production ceased in 2010.

Italmatch Forms Additives Unit

Italmatch Chemicals Group has formed a lubricant additives business unit in the wake of Decembers acquisition of Elco Corp. and parent company Detrex. Italmatch said the new unit, named Lubricant Performance Additives, will work to create new additive packages using the combined chemistries of Elco and Italmatch.

The new unit now has two testing facilities, one in Cleveland, the other in Arese near Milan, Italy. These locations will allow for technology and application testing, opening the door to new product launches in the future.

U.K. Synthetic Auto Lube Demand Will Dip by 2021

A 2.2 percent per year rise in synthetic automotive lubricants demand in the United Kingdom to 126,000 metric tons is not enough to stave off an overall decline in demand for conventional and synthetic oils by 2021, predicts United States-based industrial research company Freedonia Group in a new report.

The U.K. is the second-largest consumer of lubricants in Europe, yet the Freedonia report predicts that demand for automotive lubricants will fall slightly to 286,000 tons in 2021. The report also says that 72 percent of the market will be engine oils, with light vehicles and SUVs accounting for a greater share of lubricant demand in the U.K. than anywhere else in the world.

The report attributes the decline to improving engine technologies and high-quality lubricant formulations lengthening average drain intervals. It also puts the strengthening of synthetics growth down to stricter European Union emissions regulations and consumer demand for better fuel economy, original equipment manufacturer recommendations for low-viscosity lubricants and the arrival of more modern engines in the vehicle fleet due to vehicle turnover and the expanding availability of synthetic blends, which offer price and performance advantages over full synthetics.

Verified New Member

Automotive lubricant manufacturer Otto Lube became the newest associate member of Verification of Lubrication Specifications, an independent organization that verifies lubricant specifications on sale in the U.K. The company is the British subsidiary of Golden International Lubricants, based in the United Arab Emirates.

Personnel Changes

Castrol made Heike van de Kerkhof head of Europe and Africa lubricants business. Van de Kerkhof joins the U.K. lubricants firm
from The Chemours Company, a DuPont Performance Chemicals spinoff.

David Purvis is the new global product manager for U.K. lubricant specialist Metalube. Purvis will develop international business the high-performance protection grease for overhead line conductors and wire rope product groups.