Who we are
Innovene is the world's largest merchant marketer of polyalpha olefins (PAOs), under the trade name Durasyn®.
The business has a global presence with regional commercial teams located in League City (Texas, USA), Lyndhurst (UK) and Singapore. We employ an experienced and professional network of local sales staff and local distributors to assure true global reach. Innovene has Durasyn PAO production plants in La Porte (Texas, USA) and in Feluy (Belgium). Both sites are integrated with Innovene's linear alpha olefin product line, which provides the feedstock for the production of Durasyn fluids.
Durasyn polyalpha olefins are hydrogenated synthetic hydrocarbon fluids, which are used in a large number of industrial and automotive applications: passenger car motor oils, lubricants for wind turbines, heavy duty diesel engine oils, fibre optic cable compounds, transmission fluids, hydraulic oils and industrial gear oils to list but a few. For polyalpha olefin product and applications information please see the ‘Products' or ‘Applications' sections.
Durasyn History
The origins of the polyalpha olefin business go back to Standard Oil of Indiana (i.e. Amoco). During the 1930's, F.W. Sullivan produced the first synthetic hydrocarbon fluids by cracking petroleum oils and polymerizing the resulting olefins with aluminum chloride. Standard Oil of Indiana did not pursue the commercial production of these fluids for two very good reasons. First in 1930, oil was cheap. Second these fluids weren't very good.
In the early 1970's, Ronald Shubkin of Ethyl Corporation, the holder of the seminal patents for our current polyalpha olefin process, discovered that a boron trifluoride catalyst made a more highly branched polyalpha olefin. To put this discovery in perspective, it should be appreciated that the typical Sullivan (Standard Oil) "fluid” was a waxy solid below +36ºC while the Shubkin fluid, synthesized from the same starting materials, was perfectly fluid at -60ºC.
Ethyl signed a toll manufacturing agreement with Bray Oil in the late 1970's; Bray manufactured polyalpha olefins from alpha olefins produced at Ethyl's Pasadena, Texas facility. Ethyl further expanded its polyalpha olefin production capabilities in 1987 with the signing of a manufacturing agreement with Quantum. Quantum began producing "Ethylflo®” polyalpha olefins at its La Porte, Texas polyalpha olefins plant. In the same timeframe, Ethyl built a polyalpha olefins plant on its Feluy, Belgium alpha olefin manufacturing site in order to more quickly respond to the growing European demand for polyalpha olefins.
Finally, in light of the increasing strength of the polyalpha olefin industry, Ethyl decided to purchase Quantum's La Porte, Texas polyalpha olefins plant in 1990. A realignment of businesses within the Ethyl Corporation led to the creation of the Albemarle Corporation as a separate entity in 1994. The Ethyflo product name was replaced by the Durasyn® name during this period. Amoco purchased both plants from Ethyl / Albemarle in March 1996. For a relatively brief period, the Durasyn polyalpha olefins unit became part of BP Amoco following the merger of BP with Amoco in 1998. Finally, the Durasyn polyalpha olefin business became a permanent part of INEOS in 2005.