"he states that the ST they get has Quacker State on all the pallets and it is his belief that it comes from a QS plant somewhere"
I based my belief on the msds safety sheets that were posted here earlier. When you put SuperTech into the database it shows that the SL based oil is Warren and the SJ based oil was made by Specialty Petroleum, an independent that was bought out by Quaker State before the mergers and supposedly closed (or due to be closed) by Shell.
Wal-Mart could very well have a portion of their production at the old plant, could be reusing pallets--they never changed the bottles other than listing SL rather than SJ or anything else. They're quite hard to trace. The Warren MSDS sheets match exactly with the Wal-Mart data sheets and from these I extrapolated the Warren performance sheets which are listed on their site.
In May 2002 I wrote to Pennzoil and they sent me a sheet for their SJ oils stating that it was a separate recipe than Pennzoil or Quaker State. They are still listed as the primary supplier for SJ rated 15w40, but I note that Warren's 15w40 is still rated SJ-- I think because of some additive levels being too high.