It has been a pretty slow week overall, with all the main trading areas reporting lower cargo volumes. Asia is just restarting after the holidays, but it is unclear why the other regions are inactive.-by Adrian Brown

The off-and-on plan for an initial public offering for SK Lubricants is on once again, and this time the companys parent wants to get it done quickly.

Chinas base oil consumption will grow marginally but steadily in the next five years, according to a speaker from ICIS at the organizations World Base Oils & Lubricants Conference in London last week. In 2021, API Group II and III grades will have elbowed out Group I and off-spec oils more than ever as total demand inches closer to 9 million metric tons.

As ambitions smolder among lube suppliers in India, inorganic routes may be the only option for achieving scale rapidly, meaning more foreign and domestic mergers and takeovers may be afoot, several observers concurred at a recent event in Mumbai.