Petroplus Holdings AG will suspend next years turnaround of the base oil plant at its Petit Couronne, France, refinery. Instead, the plant may be shut down as part of a cost-cutting reconfiguration. The Petit Couronne base oil plant has 330,000 t/y of API Group I capacity and 50,000 t/y of Group III capacity.

The company began a formal information and consultation process related to the reconfiguration, as required under French law, before the end of 2011. The potential reconfiguration would impact about 120 of 550 employees at the site, according to Petroplus.

In a statement, Petroplus CEO Jean-Paul Vettier said the company continues to improve the performance of its refineries through its three-year improvement plan. But it has become clear that the Petit Couronne refinery needs more structural changes to significantly improve its competitiveness in a very difficult refining market.

Stephen Ames, principal of SBA Consulting in Pepper Pike, Ohio, U.S., said the Petit Couronne refinery is the least profitable of the five refineries Petroplus operates. He noted that a base oil plant can make a refinery more expensive to operate. In addition, base oils constitute less than 10 percent of the refinery output and can have an outsized impact on the overall refinery.

Petroplus Holdings AG claims to be the largest independent refiner and wholesaler of petroleum products in Europe. Petroplus owns and operates five refineries across Europe – the others being in Coryton, United Kingdom; Antwerp, Belgium; Ingolstadt, Germany; and Cressier, Switzerland.

Nynas Copes with Refinery Fire

Nynas is working to return to normal operations after a 23 October fire at its naphthenic base oil refinery in Nynashamn, Sweden. An official said the plant, which has capacity of 400,000 tons per year, should complete repairs by the end of this month.

All hydration units are back online now, spokesman Staffan Ceder said at the start of December. Distillation units will be back online in late January. Until then, we are bringing in raw materials from other plants in order to continue production.

The accident occurred when a heat exchanger caught fire during a scheduled closure for maintenance. Nynas said the disruption to customers was minimized because the plant had built up inventories ahead of the turnaround and because of its ability to continue producing some products. However, the company was unable to produce one cut – which it declined to identify – and as a result declared force majeure for that product.

The Nynashamn plant is the largest naphthenic base oil producer in Europe. No injuries were reported from the fire, which burned an estimated 100 tons of crude oil.

ATIEL Eases Group III Interchange

The Technical Association of the European Lubricant Industry announced new guidelines for interchange of Group III base stocks in automotive engine oils. Thats good news for blenders, who can now avoid repeating expensive engine tests when replacing a limited portion of Group III.

The guidelines are now part of ATIELs Code of Practice, prescribed for blenders making oils to qualify for meeting ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association) A/B and C engine oil sequences. Those specifications contain a number of engine tests, including the Peugeot TU5JP-L4 test for high-temperature deposits; Sequence VG (low-temperature sludge); Daimler M111 (black sludge) and M111 FE (fuel economy); Peugeot TU3MS (valve train scuffing wear); VW DV4TD (dispersivity); VW TDI (ring sticking and piston cleanliness); and Daimler OM646LA (wear).

Formulators who replace no more than 10 percent of the Group III in an approved oil will no longer be required to repeat those tests – provided that the alternative oils volatility is the same or less than the original.

This represents a savings in testing time and cost, without invalidating the technical performance of the finished engine oil, ATIEL found. The new rules were incorporated into Appendix B of the ATIEL Code of Practice, available online at www.atiel.org/codeprac.htm

TNK-BP Upgrades Blending Plant

TNK Lubricants has completed modernization work on its 25,000 ton per month lubricants blending plant in Ryazan, Russia, to compete against international brands. The company is the lube arm of TNK-BP, a joint venture between the British oil major and a group of Russian investors represented by Alfa-Access-Renova consortium.

TNK-BPs Ryazan lubes and emulsions production facility now has three upgraded units. The high-tonnage production unit is equipped with several 100-ton capacity flow mixers to produce industrial, turbine, compressor and motor oils. The second unit produces premium motor, hydraulic, compressor, cooling and automatic transmission oils. The third unit produces gear and industrial oils, as well as oils for rolling mills used in metallurgy.

The lube plant produces about 100 types of lubricants in 1 to 1,000-liter packages. The plants maximum capacity is 25,000 tons of lubes per month from its automated filling line. TNK Lubricants is the third-largest lube marketer in Russia. In 2009, it sold 77,000 tons of finished lubes, and held a 15 percent share of the countrys finished lubricants market.

Nova Plama May Make Base Oils Again

A Bulgarian partnership is working to revive the former Nova Plama refinery in Pleven, Bulgaria. The Plama Refinery partnership said it plans to resume fuels production in 2012 and that the facility will begin to make base stocks again in 12 months. The plant will have capacity of 35,000 t/y and will be upgraded to make Group III oils within two years.

The partnership has already installed a second crude distillation unit, reduced the refinerys capacity to 671,000 t/y – approximately half the previous size – and is ready to produce gas oil and bitumen. In 2012, it will begin making low-sulfur diesel and Group II base stocks. In 2013 base stocks will be upgraded to Group III.

Ironsides Adds Third Reactor

Ironsides Lubricants has installed a third grease reactor vessel with high-speed impeller at its Stockport, England, site. The company said that the use these reactors provides flexible and efficient manufacturing of grease soaps compared to conventional auto-clave oven cooking methods.

Neil Cork, Ironsides operations director, commented that with this new reactor vessel, Ironsides is establishing itself as a serious force in the European grease market. The reactor, and improvements to other aspects of our manufacturing plant, are all part of Ironsides investment plan for the future. They will help us maintain our position as the U.K.s leading grease manufacturer, supplying products to the industry at home and, increasingly, worldwide.

Oil Line Prompts Recall

A defective oil cooler line led British automaker Lotus to recall 5,037 model year 2005 to 2006 Elise and Exige sports cars in the United States. The vehicles were manufactured from June 1, 2004, through November 30, 2006. The recall was prompted by a small number of instances of oil cooler lines detaching from their fittings. According to Lotus, most failures occurred in vehicles manufactured before October 2006, and a single former supplier manufactured the affected parts.

The U.S.National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned in its safety recall report that a detached oil line could spray oil on a tire, increasing the risk of a crash, or it could spray oil throughout the engine compartment, increasing the risk of a fire. Lotus dealers will repair the oil cooler line at no charge, and will replace any affected components from spare parts stock. The company said it will also reimburse any owner or purchaser of an affected vehicle if they had previously had to pay for a fix of the oil cooler line problem within a reasonable time in advance of the Lotus notification of owners, purchasers and dealers.

Fuchs Posts Third Quarter Results

Fuchs Petrolub Group posted net profit of 137 million for the first nine months of 2011, up 3 percent from 133 million during the same period in 2010. Revenues for all regions increased from the first three quarters of the previous year – by 18.3 percent to 770 million in Europe, 11 percent to 312 million in Asia-Pacific and Africa, and 14.7 percent to 211 million in North and South America.

The company noted that the key drivers of growth were significant volume increases in connection with sales price increases as a result of higher raw material costs. Fuchs anticipated year-on-year increases in both sales revenues and earnings for the financial year 2011. In light of the economic slowdown, however, the company expected that the fourth quarter of 2011 would have difficulty matching the performance of 2010s last quarter.