NEWS
STRATCO AIDS NIPPON OIL’S ENTRY INTO U.S. MARKETS 3/7/07
STRATCO AIDS NIPPON OIL’S ENTRY INTO U.S. MARKETS
Scottsdale, AZ, March 7, 2007 -- When Nippon Oil – which describes itself as Japan’s number one oil company – recently decided to enter the U.S. market, it utilized the expertise of STRATCO, Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona, to design and construct a grease plant at a unique lubricant manufacturing facility, now up and running in Childersburg, Alabama.
“This is the first installation of its type outside of Japan, and allows Nippon Oil to project a stronger presence in the global lubricant market,” says John Kay, STRATCO’s Engineering Vice President, who guided the grease plant’s development. “We’re proud to be involved in a project of this scope.”
The new Alabama facility has just started providing specialty lubricants for U.S. factories operated by Toyota, Honda and Hyundai. Nippon Oil claims the lubricant plant has capacity to produce 38 million liters of lubricants and 800 metric tons of grease per year.
Both Nippon Oil and STRATCO have long histories in the oil and lubricant industries. STRATCO’s goes all the way back to 1928.
Arizona-based STRATCO has been serving Nippon Oil at its other plants in Japan. “We’ve been involved in Japan a long time,” says Diane Graham, CEO of STRATCO. In fact, she initiated the company’s first agency contract in that country 25 years ago.
“Doing business throughout the United States and overseas for many years has allowed us to gain expertise and provide leadership in lubricating grease manufacturing technology,” Graham states.
Just as the Alabama plant becomes a significant mark of Nippon Oil’s entry into the U.S., so too it demonstrates STRATCO’s expertise into the grease plant design and construction arena. STRATCO’s main notoriety previously has been for its specialty blending equipment.
Most recently, STRATCO’s sister company ECOPATH has developed unique blending units which allow its customers to produce well-publicized asphalt rubber road surfaces that are safer, quieter and longer lasting. And STRATCO is now helping roofing manufacturers produce asphalt rubber roofing shingles more effectively.
STRATCO got the Nippon Oil design and construction project by working through Pinnacle Oil of Indianapolis. Pinnacle was responsible for building Nippon Oil’s production plant, but STRATCO’s lubricating grease expertise was needed for the Alabama facility.
Just as Nippon Oil is expanding into this country as well as into China, STRATCO and ECOPATH are further spreading their wings internationally. ECOPATH, for example, recently placed its asphalt rubber blending units in Spain and Russia, as those nations launch major highway paving projects.
“There’s a rapidly increasing need worldwide for cost effective and environmentally friendly products in our industry. We try to assist in that effort we can,” adds Graham.
STRATCO and ECOPATH have scores of grease and asphalt customers throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Designing a lubricating plant for a Japanese firm in Alabama is the latest example of STRATCO’s outreach.
CALIFORNIA ASPHALT EQUIPMENT GUIDE 9/19/06
For companies needing reliable production of high-quality asphalt rubber binder, ECOPATH has emerged on the world scene to provide an efficient solution with its state-of-the-art, mobile, Asphalt Rubber Blending Plants.
ECOPATH is the only engineering company actively involved in both asphalt rubber equipment design and operation and has become an industry leader. The accurate, continuous proportional blending of ECOPATH's high-quality asphalt rubber binder plus the system's flexibility to produce polymer modified asphalt and terminal blends is attracting global attention.
To complement growing domestic operations in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas, ECOPATH recently entered the World market with the sale of four asphalt rubber blending units to Surgutneftegas, one of Russia’s prominent oil and gas companies and another unit to Asfaltómeros in Spain, one of Europe’s pacesetters in the asphalt rubber industry.
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