Petrobras Acquires Chevron's Texaco Brand Lube Business in Chile
Brazil's Petrobras last Thursday said it signed an agreement to buy Chevron Chile SAC, which blends and markets lubricants under the Texaco brand name in Chile, for around $12 million. Petrobras will receive the rights for the use of the Texaco brand, formulas and a supply contract between Petrobras and Chevron for 24 months, enough time to allow for the transition to be made to the Petrobras Lubrax lubricant trademark.
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Valvoline and tiwi Unveil Program Guaranteed to Improve Fleet Fuel Mileage
Valvoline and telematics provider, tiwi, a division of inthinc Technology Solutions, Inc., unveiled a program last week designed to guarantee fleets up to 4% better miles per gallon, or their money back. Called the “Fuel Proof Guarantee,” the program combines the fuel-conserving benefits of Valvoline’s Premium Blue Extreme 5W-40 engine oil and Syn Gard FE 75W-90 gear oil with a new driver monitoring and mentoring system from tiwi.
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October Class 8 Truck Sales Jump More Than 100 Percent
Preliminary data shows Class 8 orders for all major North American OEM’s totaled 21,792 units in October, reflecting a definite upsurge in order activity. October’s order volume is a 104% increase over September and a 117% year over year increase. Is this a sign of an economic upturn? An industry research firm says all indications are that the October increase is due to the filling up of remaining 2009 production slots for trucks with the older 2007 engine technology and to avoid the new tighter emission and more expensive 2010 engines.
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Opportunities in Lubricants 2010: India Market Analysis
Kline & Company has announced a new study from its Energy practice, Opportunities in Lubricants 2010: India Market Analysis. This study will provide an in-depth analysis of the commercial automotive, consumer automotive, and industrial lubricant products, end uses, and suppliers in the rapidly growing Indian market. This report will also highlight the concept of “accessible market” because there does exist a market for adulterated and sub-par lubricants in India.
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SINOPEC Issues its Global Lubricant Market Strategies
SINOPEC Corp. recently held its first global lubricant distributors' conference in Beijing, attended by over 100 partners from more than 30 countries. The conference showed SINOPEC Lubricant's opportunity, strength and aspiration to enter into the world market, and indicated SINOPEC Lubricant's global market strategies for this new stage.
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Calumet Swings to a Profit in 3Q; Tulsa Lube Business Benefits Holly
Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. reported net income for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 of $4.0 million compared to net loss of $12.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008. Holly Corporation last Thursday reported that third quarter net income fell to $23.5 million from $49.9 million for the same period of 2008.
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Total's and Marathon's 3Q Profits Fall
France's Total last Wednesday announced third-quarter adjusted net income, which strip out gains from changes in the value of fuel inventories and one-off items, fell 54% to €1.87 billion from €4.07 billion in the same quarter last year. Marathon said it made $413 million for the quarter ended September 30, down from profit of $2.1 billion in the year ago quarter.
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Eastern Hemisphere Lube Base Oil Price Report
Crude oil prices appear to have stabilized around the US$80 per barrel level, trading last week in a narrow range of US$77-80 per barrel, with light sweet crude oil closing at US$77.65 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange last Friday. Globally base oil prices showed a modest upward momentum, primarily as a result of the recent increase in crude oil prices to the US$ 80 per barrel level. Eastern hemisphere base oil prices increased this past week by anywhere from US$10 to US$30 per MT.
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Correction
In our story last week 'Petromin's New 250,000 tpa Lube Blending Plant to Go On Stream by Mid-2010', third paragraph, we stated that the current joint venture is between Saudi Aramco 71% and Mobil 29%, information taken directly from Petromin website which is incorrect, having not been updated. Petromin is now owned by Advance Petroleum Services Limited (part of the Dabbagh Group) 51% and Gulf Oil Group (part of the Hinduja Group) 49%.
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