Volume 16 Issue 52

SSY Base Oil Shipping Report

Adrian Brown is away.

Pearl GTL Plant Hobbled

Shell announced last week that its joint venture Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar is operating at a reduced rate of production due to unforeseen maintenance required on some or all of the plants 18 gasifier units. A representative said that although the company has GTL base oils in stock, the problem is expected to reduce the amount of product available for sale in 2017. Repairs are already underway, and operations at Pearl will continue at a reduced rate until repairs are completed, the comp...

Russian Base Oil Refiners Push to Modernize

MOSCOW – Russian base oil producers are aiming to add around 1 million metric tons per year of API Group II and III capacity by 2020, according to VNIPIneft, a Moscow-based research and design institute in the refining industry. During the next five years, three refiners – Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Slavneft (the latter is a 50-50 joint venture of the first two) – will be ready to stream high quality base oils. Rosneft and Gazprom Neft are planning to expand their total quantiti...

Energy Reform Aids Mexican Market

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — While energy reform in Mexico hasnt had a direct effect on the lubricants market, its indirect impact is proving to be positive, Pablo Fernandez del Castillo Flores, chairman of CISA Mexico, told the ICIS Pan American Base Oils Conference here Dec. 1. Deregulation had no impact on the import of base oils; there was an open market, said Castillo Flores, whose company blends Quaker State lubricants and distributes both Quaker State and Pennzoil brands in the country. What...

Rising Middle Class Boosts African Markets

Key drivers for growth of automotive lubricant consumption in Nigeria and South Africa include rising prominence of the middle class population, a subsequent increase in vehicle sales, and the growth of industrialization in the two countries, according to market research firm Frost & Sullivan. The firm estimated the countries combined lubricants market at $2.1 billion, driven mainly by demand for engine oils, along with a perceptible rise in end-user demand for products such as transmission ...

Briefly Noted

Shell signed an agreement with Vitol Africa B.V. to sell its 20 percent shareholding in Vivo Energy for $250 million – a transaction expected to complete during the first half of 2017. A long-term brand license agreement was renewed with Vitol to ensure that the Shell brand will remain visible in more than 16 countries across Africa. Saudi Aramco recently broke ground on construction of a research center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, with an expected completion date of mid-2019. The 11,300 square meter research facility will support the companys upstream and downstream research domains as well as environmental protection research efforts.