Group III production capacity will be 50,000 metric tons per year, the company said. Each of its two existing rerefineries at the site currently have 50,000 t/y Group II+ base oil production capacity.

Puralube President and CEO Andreas Schueppel said the company can produce Group III base oils from standard used motor oils. That is one of the strengths of our technology – that we do not separate special feedstocks to process it in our plants.

Schueppel continued, We have already delivered to our international customer base about 1.3 million tons of high quality Group II+ base oil. The future shows growth in the demand for Group III. After startup of our plant … we will deliver our products to our existing customer base in Germany and Europe. We also think about exporting base oils out of Europe.

Wax Industry Faces Shortages

While global wax demand is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 1.5 percent until 2019, wax supply growth will be much slower at a CAGR of 0.4 percent, according to a study recently published by global market research and management consulting firm Kline & Co. The wax industry faces a future of changing wax supplies, the report states. Due to the closure of some API Group I plants that produce wax, as well as lower operating rates, both Europe and North America have experienced supply erosion. The global petroleum wax supply, currently representing 70 percent of global supply, continues to decline, spurring growth in the demand for synthetic and vegetable waxes.

Kline found that emerging wax supply will be driven by three variables: Group I plant rationalizations, growth in the supply of hydrogenated vegetable wax and growth in Fischer-Tropsch and Fischer-Tropsch wax capacity. In addition to the growing supplies of established polyethylene and Fischer-Tropsch waxes, more stable vegetable waxes, with higher melting points, have immense growth potential.

The report notes that global demand will grow at a slightly higher pace through 2019, compared to the previous five years for several reasons. First, demand will grow because of the post-recession strengthening of North American and European economies. Second, consumption in evolving manufacturing sectors of Asia, Africa and the Middle East will contribute to the increase. Even with the proliferation of electricity throughout the world, candles still represent 46 percent of global wax consumption, and about 80 percent of the candles used today are for decorative or religious purposes, rather than illumination.

Klines Global Wax Industry: Market Analysis and Opportunities report is available at www.klinegroup.com/reports/y635series.asp.

Nyco Now Makes Additives

Nyco announced that it has begun producing its first line of additives from a new unit at its Tournai, Belgium, synthetic lubes and ester base stock facility. The French specialty lubricants firm said the plant expansion cost 2.5 million. The new unit marks the Paris-based companys first foray into additives manufacturing.

The unit will primarily make antioxidants and coking inhibitors, but is capable of making others, Nyco spokeswoman Carole Bersillon-Morris said in an interview. The unit has capacity to produce between 2 and 2.5 metric tons of additives per batch, she said, but noted that its annual production capacity depends on the chemicals being produced.

Nycos new additives production unit is capable of making a variety of different chemicals for the lubricants industry, which will be used in aviation and industrial lubricants and partly for Nycos own formulations. The additives will also be sold to lubricant blenders.

Our business is made of 80 percent export sales, and we sell to more than 100 countries, Bersillon-Morris said. It means these products can potentially be marketed anywhere in the world, thanks to our seven affiliate offices and our network of agents and distributors.

REACH Data Sharing Clarified

The European Commission adopted a regulation that defines more clearly what the terms fair, transparent and nondiscriminatory mean for data sharing in the REACH Regulation. It also gives ECHA the mandate to ensure all registrants of the same substance are part of one joint registration.

Regulators issued the document because they felt that the provisions of REACH on data sharing and joint submission have not been used to their full potential, and their implementation was falling short of expectations. REACH data sharing agreements should now include itemization of the data to be shared, including the cost of each data item, a description indicating the information requirements in REACH to which each cost corresponds and a justification of how the data to be shared satisfies the information requirement. Agreements should also contain an itemization and justification of any administrative costs. Finally, they should contain a cost-sharing model, including a reimbursement mechanism.

Parties to existing data-sharing agreements and new coregistrants will be able to waive the new obligations by unanimous consent, and new coregistrants have the right to request itemization of all study and administration costs incurred. The new regulation also addresses the concept of fairness and nondiscrimination, stating, for example, that the condition that registrants are required to share costs related only to information they are obliged to submit also applies to administrative costs.

Total, Sany Cobrand in Nigeria

Total Nigeria Plc has signed a lubricant supply agreement with Sany Nigeria Co. Ltd. to produce lubricants to be cobranded as Total Sany. A company release stated that Total Nigeria will produce lubricants to meet Sanys equipment specifications and sell them through the companys distribution network. The agreement includes a technical training program through Sanys network, marketing support and lubricant analysis services for equipment monitoring.

Sany Group is a global company in the construction machinery industry and produces concrete machinery, excavators, hoisting machines, pile drivers, road construction machinery, port machinery and wind turbines. It boasts five industrial parks in China and four R&D and manufacturing bases in America, Germany, India and Brazil.

IPAC Opens in Belgium

International Petroleum Products and Additives Co. Inc. has opened a new production facility in Ghent, Belgium. The plant manufactures a variety of additive packages for use in automotive, heavy duty, industrial and driveline lubricants, as well as fuel additives.

Valvoline Partners with Oiltech

Valvoline has named Oiltech Lubes Service GmbH & Co. KG as sales and logistics business partner for Valvolines high-performance lubricants and automotive chemicals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Oiltech has also been named authorized Tectyl sales and logistics business partner in Austria and Switzerland.

This is an excellent strategic fit for our organization, and we are excited to have Oiltech as a sales and logistics business partner of our high-performance Valvoline products, said Vladimir Golub, Valvoline regional business manager in Europe. Oiltech was founded in 2001 and has annual lubricant sales of 4,000 tons.

Krahn, Oxea Expand Cooperation

Krahn Chemie has assumed distribution of Oxea specialty esters in France and has established a sales team that will operate from the French branch of sister company Albis Plastic during the initial phase. Krahn plans to expand its presence in France and set up its own subsidiary in the near term.

Oxea and Krahn have been working together in the field of specialty esters in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eastern Europe. These products are used as plasticizers in processing plastics and rubber, in adhesives and sealants, as well as in paints and coatings, and as synthetic esters in lubricants.

Agrinol, East Petronics Team Up

Ukrainian lubricant manufacturer Agrinol and East Petronics Ltd. of the United Arab Emirates plan to open blending plants in Georgia and Latvia. The companies, which have been partners since 2012, said the projects are financed by international investors. Each plant is being designed with capacity of about 10,000 tons per year.

This past fall we broke ground on the Georgia plant … and the [start-up] is expected by June, Julia Govorova, foreign trade department manager at the Agrinol group of companies, said in an interview. The Latvia site is in the planning phase, and the inauguration date is not determined yet.

The blending plant in Latvia will be located in Liepaja, a Baltic Sea port city. The plant in Georgia is being constructed on the site of a former truck assembly plant in Kutaisi.

Dmitriy Koverniy, head of Agrinols import department, said in a news release, The joint project with East Petronics is part of the companys strategy to shift our sales elsewhere. He said that after Russia imposed an embargo on many Ukrainian companies, Agrinol lost a market that consumed a substantial part of its production. In 2014, we stopped exports to Russia. It amounted to a significant volume of our total production, or 15,000 tons of lubricants annually. It hurt our sales and forced us to change our strategy and turn to the other markets.

Agrinols partnership with East Petronics began four years ago when the Ukrainian company began toll blending lubricants that East Petronics then marketed.