Adrian Brown is away. His column will reappear next week. Adrian Brown is a senior market analyst for chemicals and base oils with SSY Shipbrokers, London, can be reached atfix@ssychems.comor +44 12 0750 7507. Information about SSY can be found atwww.ssyonline.com. In the Houston office,Steve Rosenthalof SSY’s Chemical Tanker Department can be reached directly at +1 (713) 652-2700 and Jordi Maymi in Singapore can be reached at +65 6854-7127.

On Sept. 1, all licenses for General Motors first-generation Dexos1 passenger car engine oils expired – those products may no longer be manufactured.Only new generation products can be made now, and inventories of the obsolete products will soon be depleted. Licensing and approval of Dexos1-Gen 2 lubricants commenced at the end of 2015,allowing marketers to deploy them over the past two years, although expectations were that many would make the formal transition to the new specification in...

Ukrainian lubricants maker Azmol resumed production recently after restructuring following several years of dormancy. The restructuring was helped by two Ukranian investors. Located in the Azov Sea port city of Berdyansk, Azmol was one of the largest lubricant makers in the former Soviet Union. The company was created in 1937, and supplied the Soviet market with greases, automotive and industrial oils, beginning in the 1940s. The company is now rebranded as Azmol-British Petrochemicals, and the ...

When the auto and oil industries develop new engine tests for automobile engine oil specifications – as is happening now – there is always work that needs to be done to correlate replacement tests to the tests that they replace. The recent decision to develop API SN-RC PLUS as an interim upgrade there is sudden pressure on an ASTM committee to develop correlations between several new and existing engine sequence test procedures. The Category Life Optimization Group reported Sept. 14 ...

Lubrizol opened its new drumming facility and warehouse in Painesville Township, Ohio, as part of the Wickliffe, Ohio-based companys five year, $100 million investment plan announced in April 2015. The combined 180,000 square foot facilities cost $70 million. More than half of all Lubrizol additives products worldwide [contain] at least one component manufactured at the Painesville Township site, the press release said. Increased manufacturing capacity and updated automated packaging capabilitie...

MUMBAI, India – Global petroleum wax supply will continue to drift lower on shrinking sources of API Group I base stocks, paving the way for alternative waxes, but that wont be sufficient to meet the worldwide demand, so the overall wax market deficit will cross 600 million pounds by 2021, an industry consultant said at an event here in July. The global wax market – which consists of petroleum, synthetic, vegetable and animal waxes – was estimated at 10.5 billion pounds in 2016...