Asia is undoubtedly the most active of all the regional markets. Europe had a bad week with poor cargo volumes. The Americas appear to have shown a slight improvement, but anything must be better than the previous week. U.S. Gulf There has been a bit more life reported in the United States Gulf-to-east coast of South America trades over the past week. A little bit more caustic has been done, ethanol is being discussed, some paraxylene was booked and some small parcels of clean petroleum were fix...

Puralube is considering upgrading its rerefinery operations in Germany to produce rerefined API Group III base oil, and it named a former Safety-Kleen executive as president of its newly formed U.S. subsidiary. Last year, Puralube said it was investing 40 million to build a third rerefinery at its Zeitz Chemical and Industrial Park in Troeglitz, Germany, which would bring its Group II+ base oil capacity to about 150,000 metric tons in late 2014. Its two existing rerefineries at Troeglitz each ha...

Elevance Renewable Sciences announced plans for a biorefinery in Sabah, Malaysia, in collaboration with Genting Plantations Berhad. The Woodbridge, Ill.-based natural oils company has agreed to license its proprietary olefin metathesis technology to Genting, to produce 240,000 metric tons per year of specialty chemical products such as lubricants, surfactants and detergents. Elevance will also provide intellectual property rights, knowledge transfer, and technical and consulting services. Elevan...

WD-40 posted net income of $10.4 million for the quarter ending May 31, up 1 percent from the year-ago period, with net sales up 3 percent at $95.7 million. Earnings reached 69 cents per diluted share in WD-40s fiscal third quarter, compared to 66 cents per share in the year-earlier period. San Diego-headquartered WD-40s fiscal year runs from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31. WD-40s fiscal third quarter sales in the Americas declined 5 percent to $45.1 million, sales in Europe rose 12 percent to $36.7 million...

Russias Gazprom Neft Lubricants is developing an international network of service stations for maintenance and regular oil changes. Titled as G-Energy Service, the project aims to open 15 such stations by the end of the year. The service points will offer post-warranty car maintenance that includes motor and transmission oil changes, as well as change of technical fluids. The project already started in three service stations – two in Italy and one in Georgia, Gazprom Neft Lubricants said i...