Last week, several lube base oil refiners, including Calumet, Chevron, HollyFrontier, Motiva Enterprises, and Phillips 66 began another round of price decreases, announcing significant reductions, typically in the 50 cents per gallon area (35 cpg to 65 cpg range). For most of these suppliers it was their third price reduction in the past two months and as much as fifth price reduction since mid-August. In total, since mid-August, most producers have reduced the prices of their base oils by $1 or more per gallon.

Most of these base oil producers, only two or three weeks ago, announced a price reduction, although the decreases were much smaller typically in the 10 to 25 cents per gallon range. In early November these producers announced a greater price decrease, typically in the 20 cpg to 40 cpg range.

In the naphthenic base oil segment, San Joaquin Refining last Wednesday announced a 20 cents per gallon across the board price decrease effective December 19. This was SJR's first decrease since late November, which was also a price reduction of 20 cpg.

A summary of this latest round of price decreases is shown at the bottom of our newsletter home/main page under "Other Headlines".

Upstream, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil February futures on the Nymex closed above $57/bbl on Friday, December 19, after earlier reaching its lowest level since May 2009, down nearly 50% from it's June 2014 high. Brent crude futures for February delivery closed for the week above $61/bbl, recovering from a five-year low of $58.50 this week, nearly half of what oil traded for back in May of this year.