WINFIELD TWP — Leo Sestini founded Sentry Oil and Grease in the mid-1970s, selling grease tubes out of the back of his car.

He started the business on a working farm along Marwood Road.

The company became a pioneer in developing the mini bulk delivery system in Western Pennsylvania.

"That's been our claim to fame even through the Agip years," said Ty Giesler, Agip's production and quality manager.

After the company flourished for about 15 years, Sestini began looking for a partner to expand the business.

Instead, he ended up selling the company to R.W. Group II, near Doylestown, which changed the name of its new subsidiary to Minuteman Lubricants.

Finally, American Agip, a division of the Italian conglomerate ENI, bought the business in 1995.

Today, the Marwood plant serves as Agip's lubricants division production plant in North America.

"We basically make oil," said Pamela Rape, supply and purchasing manager.

The plant produces hundreds of products, including engine oils and transmission fluids that serve industrial, trucking and mining companies.

Along with vehicle engine lubricants, Agip produces industrial lubricants for hydraulic systems, turbines, compressors, bearings, open and closed gears, machine tools, pneumatic tools and industrial transmissions.

Special application lubricants include concrete mold release oils and heat transfer oils.

Among the uses of hydraulic oils are lubricating hydraulic systems on construction equipment, such as blades and buckets and industrial presses capable of withstanding thousands of pounds of pressure.

Transmissions enable the transfer and usability of power generated by the engine.

Along with gear and transmission oils, Agip offers greases, turbine oil and compressor oils.

Turbines are rotary engines. Turbine oils are made with high-quality mineral bases to ensure high performance in terms of water and air separation.

Compressors use compressed air or gas to operate tools, to cool or heat, and other applications. Compressor oils are complex products requiring high-quality raw materials.

The lubricants are packed and sent to distribution facilities in New York, New Jersey and Canada.

Agip's customers range from the automotive and industrial to agricultural.

Giesler said the company deals in a high-end product, selling to other companies.

"You don't see our oil on the shelf in Wal-Mart," Rape said.

The manufacturing process begins with formulating the lubricant using base materials and any additives. Production and testing follow.

The fluids are then poured into pails, drums, kegs and totes, which are plastic bins in metal cages.

Geisler said the plant's storage capacity is just under one million gallons.

Agip has its own fleet of 14 delivery trucks, ranging from tractor-trailers to pickups.

"These trucks deliver a variety of package sizes up to 20 drums," Geisler said.

The plant delivers as far east as State College, as far west as Akron, Ohio, and south to West Virginia and western Maryland.

The plant has 16 pumps used for three separate operations: heavy duty motor oil, passenger vehicle motor oil and industrial lubricant production.

Along with lubricants, Agip sells clean-burn furnaces, which dispose of oil.

"The only legal way to dispose of motor oil is to burn it," Geisler said.

In addition to installing the furnaces, the company maintains and repairs them. Several of them are used in Agip's plant.

Agip also manufactures and sells lube trucks, which provide industries such as mining with a mobile supply of lubricants.

"These guys build these things from scratch," Geisler said.

ENI, Agip's parent company, owns five refineries in Italy and is a partial owner in two German refineries and two in the Czech Republic.

Established in 1953, ENI does business in 70 countries and employs about 71,000 people.

American Agip, which has corporate headquarters in New York, is part of the ENI Division Refinery and Marketing.

The plant has two main buildings, a 30,500-square-foot structure and a 7,500-square-foot structure. A smaller building at the plant is known as "the barn."

The original building used by Sentry Oil and Grease still is on the property, but with a newer structure built around it, swallowing the barn up whole.

Stalls formerly holding horses now contain equipment.

"What once was a chicken coop-barn is now transformed into a sophisticated oil blending operation," Geisler said.