U.S. markets are still uncharacteristically active this week, while Europe and certain routes in Asia are slightly slower. U.S. Gulf It is still busy on routes into Asia, but a lack of space in August means that cargoes are hard to fix. Several outsiders have already committed to go on berth in August, one with a cargo of 20,000 tons of methanol from Jose, Venezuela, to Japan, and another with a butadiene cargo. Several large lots of paraxylene have been covered, with more lined up for August sh...

With North American and Asian automobile manufacturers asking that a stop-gap GF-5 Plus category be inserted in the ILSAC series of passenger car engine oils and rushed to market by year end, the American Petroleum Institutes Lubricants Group can expect to chew through a heavily loaded plate of issues when it meets later this month. It should not be surprising to anyone that ILSAC, the automakers International Lubricants Standardization and Approval Committee, does not want to wait for the full ...

Avista Oil stopped production at its API Group I base oil rerefinery in Kalundborg, Denmark, last week following a fire on July 24. The investigation into the incident and its cause is ongoing, and the company has not yet determined when the plant will be back in operation. A press release issued at 10:25 a.m. on the morning of July 24 by the local Central and West Zealand police – which is responsible for the Kalundborg area – indicated that the Avista Oil Denmark sites fire was und...

Profits were up for Fuchs, Milacron and S-Oil, while SK Lubricants reported decreased operating profit, Valvoline posted a decline in operating income and Quaker Chemical reported decreased net income, all for the quarter ending June 30, compared to a year earlier. S-Oil S-Oils lubricant base oil segment reported second quarter operating income of 129.4 billion South Korean won (U.S. $115.5 million), a modest increase from last years 128.1 billion won. Revenue jumped 17.3 percent to 405.8 billio...

Gazpromneft-Lubricants increased its marine oil sales by 7.5 percent in the first six months of 2017, compared to the year-earlier period, expanding the geography of its sales through integration in the Chevron global logistics network. The company is a licensed manufacturer and dealer of Chevrons Texaco-branded line of marine oils. In the first half of 2017, the company sold 7,400 tons of marine oils, up 555 tons from the same period of time last year, the company said. In Russia, the company e...

Lubricant sales and marketing maven Maura Schreier-Fleming will give the keynote address at the first-ever Petroleum Quality Institute of America Summit, coming Sept. 14 to the Cleveland, Ohio, area. A longtime lubricants expert with Mobil and Chevron and now head of the training and consulting firm Best@Selling, she will share the Secrets of Selling Value Over Price, as part of a targeted program that will cover quality assurance, lubricant sales trends and technical specifications, product lab...

Editors at Lube Reports sister publication, LubesnGreases magazine, have just put the finishing touches on our yearly Lubricants Industry Factbook. The 2017-2018 edition of this valuable guide is packed with eye-opening information about lubricant industry trends, statistics and standards. Wonder where U.S. base oil exports are flowing? See page 25. Need to figure out the market share of synthetic lubricants? Youll find it on page 36. Whether youre trying to license an engine oil (page 18), lear...