Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,A venture between Germany’s Fuchs Petrolub AB (FPE3) and the fuel retail unit of Turkey’s Koc Holding AS (KCHOL) will invest $25 million in a lubricants plant in western Turkey as it targets increased sales.The first phase of the plant, to be built in the Aliaga industrial region, will have a capacity of 50,000 metric tons a year when output starts at the end of 2013, Murat Seyhan, chief executive of Opet Fuchs AS, said at a news conference in Istanbul. Capacity will rise to 75,000 tons, he said. Opet Fuchs targets 2012 sales of 90 million euros ($114 million) from 80 million euros in 2011, the companies said in a statement. Opet Fuchs will have a market share of 12 percent, or 41,000 tons, in 2012, Seyhan said.Turkey’s lubricants market is expected at 350,000 tons this year, and the plant will boost the country’s capacity by 5 percent, according to the statement released at the conference.Opet Petrolculuk AS, the fuel retailing unit owned equally by Koc Holding and the Ozturk family, had sales of 14.8 billion liras ($8 billion) in 2011, with an 18.7 percent share in the Turkish fuel market by volume, according to the release

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. ("Calumet") said today that its wholly owned subsidiary Calumet Lubricants Co., L.P. has acquired all of the outstanding membership interests of TruSouth Oil, LLC, a specialty petroleum packaging and distribution company located in Shreveportt , Louisiana ("TruSouth"). Immediately prior to its acquisition by Calumet, TruSouth was owned in part by Fred M. Fehsenfeld, Jr., the chairman of the board of directors of Calumet's general partner; the spouse of F. William Grube, the vice chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of Calumet's general partner; and other members of the Fehsenfeld and Grube families, who also own Calumet's general partner. The terms of the acquisition, which were not disclosed, were unanimously approved by the board's conflicts committee, which is composed entirely of independent directors. TruSouth, formed in 2006, manufactures and markets a variety of specialty products including motor oils, gear oils, engine oils, automotive fluids and specialty engineered fuel and oil mix products. TruSouth's assets include an 85,000 square foot production and warehouse facility with state-of-the-art blending and packaging equipment and bulk tank storage capacity of approximately 1.5 million gallons. "All the employees at TruSouth have done an excellent job in growing this business over the past five years through development and production of high-quality specialty products," said Bill Anderson, Calumet's Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "We are pleased to complete this acquisition and look forward to continuing TruSouth's growth in their products and brands as well as further integration with Calumet's specialty products portfolio," said Anderson. Calumet is a master limited partnership and is a leading independent producer of high-quality, specialty hydrocarbon products in North America. Calumet processes crude oil and other feedstocks into customized lubricating oils, solvents and waxes used in consumer, industrial and automotive products. Calumet also produces fuel products including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Calumet is based in Indianapolis, Indiana and has eight facilities located in northwest Louisiana, northwest Wisconsin, western Pennsylvania, southeastern Texas and eastern Missouri

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,South Korea's SK Energy will import 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil this year under a term contract with Iran, up 10,000 bpd from a year earlier.South Korea is the world's fifth-largest crude importer and buys around 10 percent of its oil from Iran. The small increase in purchases from Iran comes despite fresh US sanctions that if enforced would make it difficult for SK Energy to pay Iran for its oil.A second South Korean refiner Hyundai Oilbank has struck a deal to import 70,000 bpd of Iranian crude in 2012, unchanged from 2011.Of four refiners in South Korea, only SK Energy and Hyundai Oilbank import crude from Iran.

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,IN ANOTHER sign heavy industry could be waning at Kurnell, Caltex announced last week the closure of the lubricating oil refinery. The news follows carbon black plant Continental Carbon’s announcement it was shutting up shop earlier this month.Continental Carbon shared a recycled water plant with Caltex and sold steam to the lube plant.Caltex announced last week it had made its last batch of lubricating oils in Kurnell and that all units associated with the lube plant had been taken offline. The impending closure was announced in December 2009, with Caltex saying the oils made at the refinery had become ‘‘outmoded’’.Post-shutdown work will continue until mid-2012, a Caltex spokesman said.Caltex announced in October it would also close two other units, one which was linked to the lube plant.The closures will affect about 110 employees at the plant. Forty employees associated with the lube plant took redundancies, while 30 others were redeployed by Caltex. The closures are not related to the main oil refinery at Kurnell, which continues to operate normally.Retired operations manager of the lubricating refinery Harry Babbage, of Burraneer, said the closure was a ‘‘tragic’’ decision for the workers.‘‘They used to call that refinery the ‘black ark’ because of the heavy oils it made,’’ Mr Babbage, 87, said.Mr Babbage went on to become the first Australian manager of Caltex operations at Kurnell before he retired in 1987.He said dramatic technological advances in the oil refining industry had seen the number of workers at the plant plummet since his days at the helm.‘‘The tankers are a good example. In my day one of those had 39 people working on it, now I think they have 19 men to a tanker,’’ Mr Babbage said.Initially co-owned by Ampol, Golden Fleece and Caltex, the lubricating oil refinery opened in 1964.It was Australia’s last base oil refinery and made oils used for the manufacture of bitumen, greases and cosmetics.Caltex is hosting a farewell to the lubricating oil refinery on Friday, February 24, 2012.All Caltex employees past and present who have worked at the plant are invited .

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,Russia's crude oil export duty will be decreased from Jan. 1 by 2 percent to $397.5 per tonne from $406.6 in December due to lower crude prices.This is slightly above the range calculated earlier this week.The final oil export duty for January is based on the seaborne Urals URL-E crude average price from Nov. 15 to Dec. 14 inclusive.Finance Ministry official Alexander Sakovich told Reuters the average oil price for this period stood at $109.09 per barrel, down from $111.17 in the previous time span. Urals closed at $106.21 per barrel on Wednesday.The export rate is officially announced by the government at the end of each month.The export duty on crude from some new fields in East Siberia -- apart from the Vankor, Talakan and Verkhechonskoye fields -- and the Caspian Sea, which enjoy a lower rate than Russian crude from other production areas, will be cut to $194.1 per tonne from $200.9 in December.Earlier this week a government subcommission recommended to include Gazprom's Arctic offshore field Prirazlomnoye to this list of deposits with a preferential tax rate.Exports of gasoline and naphtha, which are subject to a protective export duty to ease the domestic supply shortage, will carry a levy of $357.7 a tonne from Jan. 1, down from $365.9 in December.The duty on other refined products, such as diesel and fuel oil, is to decrease next month to $262.3 per tonne from $268.3 this month.

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,Thai Oil Pcl,Thailand's largest oil refiner, reported a better-than-expected 8 percent rise in quarterly net profit on Tuesday, mainly due to foreign exchange gains and rising margins.Analysts expect earnings to improve further in the fourth quarter due to expectations of higher refining margins for some products such as gas oil and jet fuel and a recovery in regional petrochemical demand.After the earnings announcement, Thai Oil shares were up 1.8 percent at 0322 GMT, while the broader index was almost 1 percent higher.Thai Oil, nearly half-owned by top energy firm PTT , posted a July-September net profit of 2.52 billion baht ($82 million) versus 2.32 billion a year earlier. Eleven analysts polled by Reuters had forecast 2.4 billion baht on average.Net profit fell sharply from the 3.24 billion baht earned in the second quarter due to oil inventory losses.Excluding the impact of its oil stocks, Thai Oil made a net profit of 2.89 billion baht, it said in a statement.We expect the impact from stock losses in the fourth quarter should not be as high as in the third quarter, which should help improve fourth-quarter earnings," Kiatnakim Securities said in a note.

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,Two Kuwaiti oil experts commended Kuwait Petroleum Corporation's (KPC) partnership with China to build an oil complex which would house a refinery and a petrochemical factory, saying building oil projects abroad would gaurantee Kuwait's heavy crude oil marketing.The strategic partnership with China should be applauded, the experts said in two intervies with KUNA, with the foundation stone for the oil complex scheduled to be laid in mid-November.One of the key objectives of this project is to market Kuwait's heavy and medium crude oil," Dr. Talal Al-Bathali said, as most of the oil importing countries did not have refineries that could deal with this type of crude oil.China will also benefit from this partnership, he told KUNA, because it would be co-owner of the oil complex which would thus honor its fuel needs.The yet-to-be-built refinery in the oil complex is projected to produce 300, 000 barrels per day (bpd), in addition to other products manufactured by the petrochemical factory, added Al-Bathali.He called for establishing more partnerships with oil consuming countries."China is a very important country because it consumes between 7-8 percent of global oil, and such projects will guarantee long-term marketing of Kuwait oil," he said.Al-Bathali, talking about oil prices, said it was not strange anymore to talk about a three-US-dollar rise of an oil barrel in a single day or a USD-10 jump in a month. He attributed this increase to current political circumstances.He said threats to wage a military action against Iran was causing panic in oil markets, but noted that prices would stabilize in future because of US economic recovery and resolution of the European debt crisis.Khaled Boodai, another oil expert, said the Sino-Kuwait oil complex would benefit both countries and would create new markets for Kuwaiti crude oil.Kuwait has enough petrochemical factories domestically, he told KUNA, and it should build others abroad because of the limited geographical size of the Arab Gulf country.A petrochemical factory should be 20 kilometers away from residential areas to work in a safe environment, he explained, and Kuwait's limited space of land would not allow this to happen specially amidst the growing population.On the oil prices, however, Boodai said they were largely stable namely after the European Union (EU) boosted the stability fund from 290 billion euros to a trillion euros.Greece's decision to back down from its decision to hold a referendum on the EU's rescue package had positive impacts on the markets, he noted, coupled with writing off 50 percent of Athens' debts. These solutions, he continued to say, were not ever lasting. "The solution will take time that might extend to 10 years as European officials have suggested." The EU countries are determined to end the debt crisis and supporting the euro, a matter that positively serve oil markets, he said.OPEC believes that extraordinary high oil prices is not in the interest of its members, said Boodai, suggesting that oil prices would remain between the USD 90-110 per barrel until end of this year.

Base Oil Report:As per reports and information from our sources,Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer Cosan said on Friday it has closed a deal with Exxon Mobil Corp giving it exclusive rights to distribute and sell lubricants under the Mobil brand in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.The deal will go into effect on Nov. 14, Cosan said in a securities filing.Cosan said sales by its lubricants arm under the Mobil brand in these countries would represent 5 percent of its annual sales volume and would represent an important step in its strategy to expand its presence in distribution outside its main market of Brazil.Cosan acquired all of Exxon Mobil's Brazilian fuel and lubricant distribution assets in 2008.In 2010, Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell Plc formed the joint venture called Raizen, under which all of Cosan's fuel and lubricants distribution assets are controlled.

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources, Oilhub Korea Yeosu Co. will build and operate the 8.18 million barrels terminal to store oil products and crude. Of the total, the terminal will store 4.22 million barrels of products and the remaining will be crude, China Aviation said in a statement on Saturday.Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC) is the largest shareholder with a 29 percent stake, CAO will hold 26 percent and SK Energy and GS Caltex will hold 11 percent each.The remaining shares will be held by companies such as Samsung C&T Corporation and LG International.Construction of the terminal began in February and is expected to be completed by late 2012. CAO will be leasing tankages of the facility to store middle distillates on a long-term basis.

Base Oil Report: As per reports and information from our sources,Oil Major Shell's partial restart of its 500,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Singapore refinery has a hit a snag that will result in a delay of about 10 days before it could start producing high-margin base oils, industry sources said on Tuesday.The problem is due to a malfunctioning furnace in its Lube Oil Complex (LOC), but the restart of the largest of its three Crude Distillation Units (CDUs), with 210,000-bpd capacity, is unaffected. The unit is running at a reduced operating rate of about 50 percent."The restart was primarily driven by the very strong processing margins for lubricants. Base oil is used as the feed to produce lubes, but trading margins for base oil are too good for them to cannibalise the trading barrels," a refining source said.About 360,000 tonnes of base oil is produced from a 30,000-bpd secondary unit per year, which cracks long-residue from the CDU, yielding distillates and base oil, which is then fed into the lubricants plant.The sources said that both the unit and the plant, which collectively makes up the LOC, were also shut down in the aftermath of the fire that had crippled the plant's capability to deliver clean oil products, such as middle distillates, naphtha and gasoline, from its process units into storage and onto tankers.During the restart, it was discovered that the furnace, which is part of the LOC, was damaged and required repairs that would take about 10 days, they added."Sometimes, units and equipment get damaged during a full shutdown process. In this case, it wasn't that critical because the CDU restart went ahead and there was no need to stop the unit," another source said."This is probably because the volumes of yield produced could be stored during that period before being fed into the unit.There was another technical problem of the light distillate yield meeting the feedstock specifications of the ethylene cracker that the product was to be fed into, and it will take a day or two to solve.The feedstock will then be supplied to the 800,000 tonnes-per-year (tpy) cracker, part of a larger chemical complex that also includes a 750,000-tpy monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant, to keep the complex running, at lower operating rates, instead of having to be shut.The restart, nearly two weeks after the fire broke out and ahead of an anticipated 1-month timeframe, was made possible when a temporary line was built to deliver the clean oil products into storage without having to pass the area that had been damaged by the fire.The CDU is expected to be kept steady at the reduced operating rate for an extended period of time, while investigations into the cause of the fire and repair work continue, the sources said.Other major units, including the other two CDUs of 110,000-bpd each, a 35,000-bpd hydrocracker and the Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) either remain shut or are operating at low levels, although all were undamaged by the fire.Despite the earlier-than-expected restart, the sources said it would still take 3-6 months for the entire plant to resume normal operations. Investigations, both by the oil major and Singapore's Manpower Ministry, are ongoing. "We have commenced investigations and are working with the Ministry of Manpower as we establish the cause of the fire. We hope to apply any learnings from these findings to avoid such an occurrence in future," the Shell spokesman said