An official at Amalie noted that the companys own brand is approaching 100 years of age and, like Wolfs Head, was created in western Pennsylvania where the U.S. oil industry was born.

In a way, Amalie and Wolfs Head are like kissing cousins, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Dennis J. Madden said. Its interesting now to be associated with those two brands that go back to the beginning.

SOPUS Products, the Shell unit,sold Amalie rights to the Wolfs Head brand, along with accounts and inventory. The companies did not disclose terms of the transaction nor the size of the Wolfs Head business.SOPUS said it sold the brand because it is no longer important to its business. While the product line has a long history,… it does not have a strategic fit in the current Shell Lubricants family of products, spokeswomanTricia Elwell Singer said.

Wolfs Head was a relatively minor line for Shell, which also owns Pennzoil and Quaker State, the two top-selling passenger car motor oil brands in the United States. Shell also markets motor oils under the Shell and Rotella brands, and flies the Helix flag outside the United States.

Wolfs Head is nowhere near Pennzoil, or even Amalie-branded volumes, Madden said. But its a brand that we have coveted for a number of years, and we see it as an opportunity to grow.

The Wolfs Head business is comprised almost entirely of motor oils for passenger cars and heavy duty trucks, according to Madden, with the former comprising approximately 55 percent of the brands volumes. The brand can be found across the country, but most sales are concentrated in Pennsylvania and the surrounding states.