Fire Shuts Formosa Base Oil Plant
A fire Sunday in the residual desulfurization unit at Formosa Petrochemical’s refinery in Mailiao, Taiwan, shut down several downstream operations, including its base oil plant with 10,000 barrels per day of API Group II capacity.
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Castrol Sells Vernon Plant to Hasco
Hasco Oil this month purchased Castrol Industrial’s blending plant in Vernon, Calif., along with its forge lubricant product line. The facility will operate as Pacific Precision Formulators.
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Deal in Sight for Shell Africa
Energy trader Vitol and investment firm Helios are negotiating to acquire equity in Shell’s downstream businesses in 19 countries in Africa, including lubricants businesses in each of the countries except Egypt.
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SK Income Up, Valvoline’s Down
Ashland’s Valvoline division reported higher sales but a drop in operating income for the quarter ending June 30, while SK Lubricants posted increases in operating income and sales, compared to year-earlier results.
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Changes in Command at ARG
Jeannine Schoenecker will become president and chief operating officer of American Refining Group by next March 31, succeeding Harvey Golubock on his retirement, ARG’s board of directors announced.
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Belarus Additives Eye New Markets
LLK-Naftan, a leading lubricant additives producer in the Commonwealth of Independent States, last week said it is significantly expanding sales in Middle East and African markets.
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Palmer Holland Buys Triad
Palmer Holland acquired Triad Lubrication Components, which supplies lubricant additives and base stocks. Terms were not disclosed.
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Missing Lube Hole Prompts Recall
Subaru will recall 809 model year 2010 and 2011 cars starting Aug. 6 because of a crucial missing lubrication hole within the vehicles’ six-speed manual transmissions.
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U.S. Base Oil Price Report
Ergon, Cross and Calumet put forth plans to raise naphthenic base stock prices by 15 cents per gallon, while paraffinic postings are unchanged. The U.S. base oils arena continues to experience difficult market circumstances, as both the sell and buy sides agree that supply remains tight while demand is hearty.
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Europe-MidEast-Africa Base Oil Price Report
With many EMEA players preparing to vacate their desks for the summer break, few deals have been reported. Many base oil production units are taking advantage of the holiday season to run maintenance programs on the lube trains.
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SSY Base Oil Shipping Report
A quiet week overall. The U.S. Gulf is generally unchanged, Europe remains hugely overtonnaged and rates are weak, and Asia continues to shine, at least in comparison to the other areas.
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Correction
Early editions of July 21’s “Shell Embraces, Valvoline Snubs
Dexos” stated the Center for Quality Assurance is part of Savant Group. CQA is
an independent company and is not affiliated with Savant.
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