Net income for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $67 million, or $6.12 per share, compared to net income of $50 million, or $4.48 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2019.
Net income for the year was $271 million, or $24.64 per share, compared to net income of $254 million, or $22.73 a share, for the full year of 2019.
Net income for the year benefited from a gain of $16.5 million related to the sale of a non-operating parcel real estate, along with a reduced effective tax rate compared to 2019.
Sales for the quarter were $525 million, down 1% compared to the sales for the same period last year.
Petroleum -- excuse me, petroleum additives operating profit for the quarter was $84 million, up 14.6% versus the fourth quarter of 2019.
Shipments increased 1.9% between the periods with increases in lubricant additive shipments in all regions except Asia Pacific partially offset by decreases in fuel additive shipments driven by the North America and European regions.
During this past quarter, in addition to funding $21 million of dividends, we spent $33 million on capital expenditures in support of our long range capital plans.
Turning to the full year, petroleum additives sales were $2 billion compared to sales in 2019 of $2.2 billion.
Petroleum additives operating profit for 2020 was $333 million, a 7.2% decrease compared to 2019 operating profit of $359 million.
Shipments decreased 5.2% between full year periods with decreases in both lubricant additives and fuel additives shipments.
The effective tax rate for 2020 was 18.3% compared to 23.3% for 2019.
During the year, we funded capital expenditures of $93 million, paid dividends of $83 million and repaid $45 million of borrowings on our revolving credit facility.
We also purchased 271,000 shares of our common stock for a cost of $101 million.
Along with our substantial investments in petroleum additives from both the capital expenditure and R&D investment perspective, we returned value to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks totaling $184 million.
We ended the year with a very healthy balance sheet and with net debt to EBITDA at 1.1 times.
As we have stated before, we are comfortable maintaining net debt to EBITDA in the 1.5 to 2 times range, and at times, may go outside of that range.
In 2021, we expect to see capital expenditures and investments in the $75 million to $85 million range.

Summary:
Net income for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $67 million, or $6.12 per share, compared to net income of $50 million, or $4.48 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2019.