History
| The development of catalytic cracking technology resulted in the availability of large quantities of propylene and butylenes. Efforts began to develop synthetic lubricating oils based on the polymerization of these olefins. |
 1940's | Commercial manufacture of liquid polybutenes commenced. Standard Oil began manufacturing detergent additives using polybutenes and then began selling polybutene blends as synthetic lubricants under the Indopol trade name. |
| 1943 | Standard Oil built the Wood River No. 1 Polybutene Unit (Illinois, USA) which was designed to produce H-100 polybutene. |
| 1952 | A polybutene unit was built at Pan Am Southern's El Dorado, Arkansas Refinery (it was converted to polypropene operation during 1961). |
| 1955 | H-1500 polybutene was first produced as a commercial product. |
| 1962 | The polybutene plant at Lavera with an initial capacity of 5k tons/year was commissioned by Naphtachimie. |
| 1969 | The BP Chemicals polybutene unit at Grangemouth was commissioned. The plant at Baglan Bay was closed and the production transferred to the new unit in Scotland. |
| 1969 | The Amoco Texas City polybutene unit began operation. Its initial capacity was 77k tons/year. |
| 1979 | The capacity of the Texas City polybutene plant was expanded to 105k tons/year. |
| 1981 | A second polybutene unit was constructed at Grangemouth to develop very high molecular weight products to be used as viscosity index improvers. |
| 1983 | The Whiting polybutene unit with of a capacity of 75k tons/year was started up at Amoco's oil refinery in Indiana. |
| 1983 | High reactive polybutenes were developed. |
| 1989 | The Lavera polybutene unit was de-bottlenecked to 48k tons/year. |
| 1992 | The feed hydrotreating unit was started up at Whiting to improve product quality. |
| 1993 | The Lavera polybutene plant capacity was increased to 65k tons/year. |
| 1997 | The Lavera polybutene plant was de-bottlenecked to 80k tons/year. |
| 1999 | Following the successful merger between BP and Amoco, and the consolidation of the respective polybutene businesses the polybutene facilities at Grangemouth were closed. Sales under the Hyvis and Ultravis brands ceased. |
| 2000 | The Lavera plant was developed to produce a full range of polybutene products including H-6000 and H-18000. |
| 2001 | BP announced the consolidation of its North American polybutene production at the Whiting petrochemical complex and that the Texas City polybutene plant would cease production by the end of the year. |
| 2001 | On 1st September the new globally aligned Indopol polybutene portfolio was launched. |
| 2005 | Olefins and derivatives business of BP is re-organized to Innovene and becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of BP. |
| 2005 | INEOS acquires the Innovene business and product lines. |