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France’s Total is merging its operations in Portugal, including some 141 retail sites, with those of Cia Espanola de Petroleos SA (CEPSA), its Spanish partner. CEPSA is Spain’s second-largest petroleum company, which has more than 1,650 outlets across the Iberian Peninsula. Total has been a shareholder in CEPSA since 1990 and currently has an interest of almost 49%. In Portugal, the merged interests will be managed by CEPSA, which has operated in the country for some forty years. It opened its La Rábida Refinery in Huelva in 1991, and owns supply and storage facilities, including a depot at Matosinhos, near Oporto. The newly created combined business will have a market share of about 11%, and a network of 300 service stations in Portugal − to be co-branded CEPSA/Total − that will sell lubricants branded Total, CEPSA and Elf. Both companies see the move as a way of improving sales of lubricants, bitumen, aviation fuels and liquefied petroleum gas. 
News agencies are widely reporting that Esso Brasileira de Petroleo Ltda., in Brazil, has been sold by ExxonMobil International Holdings to the Brazilian ethanol giant Cosan S.A., although at the time of writing neither party has issued a statement. The purchase, which is valued at $826 million, is said to include a lubricants plant in Rio de Janeiro, and a controlling stake in a lubes terminal in Duque de Caxias. In addition, Cosan and ExxonMobil have also entered into long-term agreements that will allow Cosan to resell Mobil 1 and use other Esso and Mobil lube brands in Brazil. Previously, ExxonMobil had about a 10% share in a Brazilian lubes market that is said to be worth some 1.07 million metric tonnes annually. In Russia, Taneco has revealed plans to build a new Group II and Group III base oil plant at Nizhnekamsk in the Tatarstan region by 2011. News agencies report that this division of the Russian oil company Tatneft has signed a $2 billion, 25-month loan to finance the first phase. When operational, the plant is expected to make 100,000 metric tonnes of basestock per year.
There are also reports that Gazprom’s Sibneft-Omsk Refinery in Omsk is to upgrade its base oil plant in four phases, in order to make Group II and Group III base oils, to be fully operational between 2013 and 2015.
Turkmenbashi Oil Processing refinery in Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, is looking to increase its Group II capacity by up to double the current amount.
Lukoil is similarly looking to double, at least, its Group III production at Volgograd.
As part of its published strategy to grow its oil refining business alongside its premium-quality renewable diesel operations, Finland’s Neste Oil has launched what it claims to be ‘a unique renewable diesel’ into the domestic market. The company also says that it is the first in the world to bring out such a product that suits all diesel motors. The product contains at least 10% renewable fuel, in a formulation based on its NExBTL component, which has a 40-60% lower level of greenhouse gas emissions over its entire lifecycle compared to fossil diesel. Neste has oil refineries at Porvoo and Naantali, with a combined crude oil refining capacity of about 260,000 barrels per day.
The UEIL Annual Congress 2008, entitled Lubricant Raw Materials – Technology and Supply, will take place 23 to 25 October in Warsaw, Poland (previously booked for Krakow). It will be the first conference for UEIL’s new General Secretary, Milagros Mostaza-Corral, who recently took over from Axel Rindborg.