Volume 17 Issue 18
SSY Base Oil Shipping Report
May 3, 2017Many countries celebrated Labor Day on May 1, which curtailed business opportunities for a large chunk of the global fleet. Business had otherwise started to look slightly more promising in most regions, including Asia. U.S. Gulf Some owners remain jittery along the route into the Far East, and it is these owners who can be relied upon to accept rates in the low $50s per metric ton for 5,000-ton parcels from the U.S. Gulf to the Mainport, Far East. Other owners, whose ships are not open until th...
Calumet Launches Group III Base Oil
May 3, 2017Calumet Specialty Products Partners L.P. announced on Monday that it has begun making API Group III base oil at its plant in Shreveport, Louisiana, the only virgin Group III produced in the United States at this time. The new 4 centiStoke Group III base stock – marketed as Calpar 4GIII – has a typical viscosity index of 123, according to a product data sheet at Calumets web site. The company said its Group III product is designed for use in engine oil formulations to improve gas mile...
Q1 Earnings Wrap-Up
May 3, 2017Afton Chemicals operating profit slipped, and Quaker Chemical reported a 45 percent decrease in net income, while BP posted a marginal increase in underlying replacement cost profit before interest and tax for its lubricant business. Fuchs earnings before tax jumped, Milacron Holdings Corp.s Industrial Segment announced a healthy increase in operating earnings and Heritage-Crystal Clean posted an increase in revenue for their Oil Business in the first quarter of 2017. Milacron Cincinnati-based M...
Gazpromneft Grows in Central Asia
May 3, 2017Gazpromneft Lubricants finished product sales in Central Asia rose by 35 percent in 2016, driven by increased tie-ups within the regions industries, the company said recently. The company increased its supplies of its flagship motor oil brand G-Energy and its Gazpromneft-branded products in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia to 35,000 metric tons, up 35 percent compared to 2015, the company said in a recent news release. The five central Asian countries con...
Study Disputes Formaldehyde Cancer Findings
May 3, 2017A newly published reanalysis of a 2010 study widely used to assess the hazards of formaldehyde found no link between exposure to the chemical and leukemia. The peer-reviewed reanalysis was published online in the Journal of Critical Reviews in Toxicology. The original paper – published in January 2010 by Luoping Zhang and 33 co-authors in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention – compared the presence of reported chromosomal abnormalities in a small group of Chinese workers...
Briefly Noted
May 3, 2017Lubrizol selected Jacobs Engineering Group to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for Lubrizols new polyisobutylene unit in Deer Park, Texas. Announced as a project in 2015, the unit is expected to be fully operational in the first half of 2019. RelaDyne signed definitive agreements to acquire Abilene, Texas-based Western Marketing Inc., which supplies bulk and packaged lubricants to customers using internal combustion engines primarily for transportation, agriculture, and energy pumping and gathering systems. Dover Chemical will increase the off-list prices of all grades of its liquid and resinous chlorinated products – including but not limited to those sold under a variety of trade names – by 6 cents per pound effective June 1, citing increased costs for regulatory compliance along with increased raw material costs. Donaldson Co. Inc., acquired Anderson, Indiana-based Hy-Pro Filtration, which designs and manufactures filtration systems and replacement filters for stationary hydraulic and industrial lubrication filtration applications.