Petrochemical Firms Invest In Lubricants

ExxonMobil Chemical and Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) have unveiled investments in poly-α-olefins (PAOs) for use as lubricant base stocks. ExxonMobil is planning a new plant at its Baytown, Texas, complex that will have 50,000 metric tons per year of capacity for metallocene-catalyzed PAOs. The company expects to complete the plant in 2013. Introduced last year, the products enable lubricants with improved shear stability, viscosity index, and low-temperature performance, ExxonMobil says. Separately, CPChem has agreed to purchase a PAO plant in Beringen, Belgium, from Finland’s Neste Oil. The purchase will more than double CPChem’s capacity for PAOs, which it also makes in Cedar Bayou, Texas.