What IRMCO makes

IRMCO makes metal-forming lubricants, and it makes a specific kind: oil-free chemistries for stamping and tube bending. The core product family is IRMCO Fluids, a set of fully synthetic and water-based stamping lubricants (the 146, 313, 323, and 536 series among others) formulated by substrate, with dedicated products for aluminum, enameling steel, general-purpose steel, high-strength and ultra-high-strength steel, stainless steel, and zinc-coated galvanized and galvannealed steel. The second pillar is tube bending: IRMCO Gel 980 and IRMCO EXTREME are oil-free, clear gel lubricants for mandrel and rotary-draw bending of mild, stainless, and aluminized steel. Rounding out the range are MQL (minimum-quantity-lubrication) fluids and solvent-free evaporative, or vanishing, lubricants aimed at low-VOC processes that need to yield dry parts.

The company states that it developed the first fully synthetic, oil-free stamping lubricants and the first oil-free clear gel tube-bending lubricants. It positions the product line less as a commodity fluid and more as a process tool, sold alongside application support: the iTool optimization service, the iNsight product-selection program, and iHardware lubricant applicator systems. The stated payoff for a metal stamper is longer tool life, lower energy and cleaning costs, and fewer environmental and disposal headaches than oil-based lubricants carry, all of which feed the total cost of ownership of a stamped part rather than just its unit price. Its end markets are automotive stamping for OEMs and tier suppliers, appliance, building products, HVAC, and power equipment.

Ownership and history

IRMCO is old. International Refining & Manufacturing Co. was founded in 1914 by William Oats Jeffery, a mining immigrant from England, originally in Philadelphia. The business moved to Evanston, Illinois in the late 1910s and has operated from 2117 Greenleaf Street ever since, with multiple expansions on the same site. It celebrated its 100-year anniversary in June 2014 and marked it with a company film. For most of that century it was run by the Jeffery family across four generations, with W. Jeff Jeffery as chief executive and Jennifer Kalas as president, on an open-book management culture the company credits for long employee tenure.

That independent chapter ended in 2025. On April 1, 2025, FUCHS Lubricants Co., the US subsidiary of the publicly listed German lubricants maker FUCHS Group, acquired IRMCO. Terms were not disclosed; the M&A firm Peakstone advised IRMCO on the sale. FUCHS framed the deal as an expansion of its industrial metalworking portfolio into oil-free metal-forming and tube-bending chemistries. IRMCO now operates as a metalworking-lubricants brand inside FUCHS, whose US operations run out of Harvey, Illinois. Practically, that means a small century-old specialist now sits behind a roughly 3.6-billion-euro global parent with a wide distribution and service network, a change worth noting for any buyer weighing supplier continuity and support depth.

Certifications and quality

IRMCO holds ISO 9001:2015 certification, with a certificate dated September 2023 posted on its own site. The quality system is not new signage: the company has worked with the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center, an NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership affiliate, for more than a decade on 5S and ISO 9001 training, per an NIST MEP case study. Its environmental positioning, centered on VOC reduction, energy and resource conservation, and oil-free chemistry, is published as a company program rather than as a separate certification, so it is described here as a program and not as a held standard.

Known customers

IRMCO sells into automotive stamping lines broadly, and most of those relationships are unnamed, as is normal for a process-fluid supplier. One is on the public record.

Beyond that documented OEM approval, IRMCO's own published case studies describe unnamed automotive-OEM parts run on its lubricants, including an upper suspension arm, an exhaust cross-pipe, an oil pan, a muffler baffle, and a fluid-transfer tube. Those are program facts the company puts forward, not named customer contracts.

Sourcing evidence

IRMCO does not appear in US customs import data, and that absence is informative rather than a gap. ImportYeti has no company page for IRMCO. That fits the business: IRMCO is a lubricant manufacturer and exporter, formulating chemistries in Evanston and shipping them out to metal formers in the US and abroad, including a Mexico presence and a Southeast Asia unit. It is not an importer of record for finished goods, so there is no inbound bill-of-lading trail to read. Buyers assessing IRMCO should weigh company disclosures, its ISO 9001 quality system, and the backing of its FUCHS parent rather than any customs footprint.

A coverage note applies to that reading: US customs records capture ocean-freight imports into the United States, so a domestic manufacturer that mostly exports will show little or nothing, and the same is true of a small chemical producer. Absence of an import record is not evidence of inactivity. For buyers weighing a US-made process fluid against imported alternatives, IRMCO's domestic manufacturing also sidesteps the tariff exposure that can complicate cross-border lubricant sourcing.

Frequently asked questions

What does IRMCO make?

IRMCO makes oil-free metal-forming lubricants: fully synthetic and water-based stamping lubricants formulated by substrate (aluminum, general-purpose and high-strength steel, stainless, and galvanized steel) and clear oil-free gel tube-bending lubricants. It also offers MQL and solvent-free evaporative fluids and lubricant applicator systems. Its markets are automotive stamping, appliance, building products, HVAC, and power equipment.

Who owns IRMCO?

FUCHS Lubricants Co., the US subsidiary of the publicly listed FUCHS Group of Germany, acquired IRMCO effective April 1, 2025. Before that, IRMCO was family-owned by four generations of the Jeffery family from its 1914 founding. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Where is IRMCO located?

IRMCO has operated from 2117 Greenleaf Street in Evanston, Illinois since the late 1910s. Its parent, FUCHS Lubricants Co., is based in Harvey, Illinois. IRMCO was founded in Philadelphia in 1914 before moving to Evanston.

How old is IRMCO?

IRMCO was founded in 1914 and has been in continuous operation for more than 110 years. It celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2014.

Is IRMCO ISO certified?

Yes. IRMCO holds ISO 9001:2015 certification, with a certificate dated September 2023 published on its website, and has worked with the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center on quality-system training for over a decade.

What makes IRMCO's lubricants different?

IRMCO makes oil-free chemistries, and it says it pioneered both the first fully synthetic oil-free stamping lubricants and the first oil-free clear gel tube-bending lubricants. The pitch to a stamper is longer tool life, lower energy and cleaning costs, and reduced VOCs and disposal burden compared with oil-based lubricants.

Last verified September 27, 2026. Is this your company? Request a correction.