Afton Chemical, NewMarket Corporation's petroleum additives segment, had a record performance for the year 2012 with operating profit of $372.0 million, an improvement of slightly over 20 percent over last year’s operating profit of $309.6 million excluding the 2011 gain on the legal settlement.

Petroleum additives operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2012 was $71.6 million, an improvement of nearly 21 percent over fourth quarter operating profit last year of $59.3 million.

Sales of petroleum additives for the year increased to $2.2 billion, an increase of 3 percent over sales last year of $2.1 billion while shipments were down almost 2 percent. Sales for the fourth quarter of 2012 increased 2 percent to $511.2 million, compared to sales for the same period last year of $499.0 million and included the benefit of 4 percent higher shipments.

NewMarket's President and Chief Executive Officer, Thomas E. Gottwald, said "Our petroleum additives business continues to deliver excellent results. We believe the fundamentals of how we run the business – a safety-first culture, customer-focused solutions, technology driven product offerings, world-class supply chain and regional organizational structure to better serve our customers’ needs – are the core to this success. We continue to increase our investment in research and development and regional presence as evidence of our commitment to our customers."

NewMarket’s net income for the year 2012 increased to a record $239.6 million compared to net income of $206.9 million for the year 2011. For the fourth quarter of this year, net income was $53.1 million, up 57.6 percent from net income of $33.7 million for the same period last year.