An impressive presentation by Lubrizol's Mike McCabe, at the recent UEIL congress, drew the audience's attention to the upcoming new ACEA sequences. These will substantially replace the existing ACEA specs and will mean that "Every engine oil will need additional test data to meet ACEA 2008", said McCabe.
The impact of this is very significant for all engine oil marketers selling into Europe. With the industry pushing for coordinated global specifications, these ACEA specs will also have an impact worldwide. McCabe added “As proposed, ACEA 2008 raises the minimum level of performance for service fill engine oils to that of high performance premium engine oils. ”Reportedly the new ACEA specs are driven by the demand for reduced emissions and improved engine performance. However one questioner cynically suggested that these changes were only in the interests of the OEMs and that a proper cost-benefit analysis would show that there was probably no advantage to the population of the EU. Another view was that this could be yet another opportunity for the OEMs to switch from using branded lubes to proprietary ones – which will increase costs to motorists at a time when the automotive industry is seeking to keep motoring affordable. You can download Mike McCabe’s presentation at: McCabe presentation
There are reports in the US press that the global credit crisis and plummeting sales could yet plunge big carmakers into crisis, and there is even talk of bankruptcies caused by slowing economies and a steep fall in the North American car market. According to the country’s media, General Motors and Chrysler have been in merger talks; Ford is ready to sell its 33% share in Mazda to raise cash. In Japan, Nikkei business news and broadcaster NHK reported that Ford may sell, naming trading houses Sumitomo Corp. and Itochu Corp., along with India’s Tata Motors, as possible buyers. US sources also say that Cerberus Capital Management, which owns 80.1% of Chrysler, is also talking to Renault SA. GM and Ford lost a combined total of $24.1 billion in the third quarter of 2008. The country’s ‘big three’ are experiencing a reduction of sales to 1992 levels, as September sales in the US crashed by 27%. Forecaster JD Power & Associates predicts that US vehicle sales will fall by 13.6 million in 2008 and by 13.2 million in 2009. As we write, industry analysts are predicting a whole string of GM plant closures.
European carmakers are also suffering in the global economic slowdown. A report on the ACEA website speaks of ‘gloomy growth prospects and tumbling consumer confidence’. At the same time, the motor manufacturers ‘need to sustain high levels of investment to support the market transition to low-emission vehicles, without the backing of sufficiently strong consumer demand and political support’. New car registrations in Europe fell by 8.2% in September, over the same month in 2007, reaching their lowest level for 10 years. Go to: ACEA stats
Stop Press. Porsche has announced that it will own 75% of VW by 2009, something that it previously refuted only last March. This comes following a move by New York hedge funds to bet billions of dollars on the fall of VW stock by means of a short play on the stock exchange. Porsche announced that it had increased its holding in VW to 42.6%, on its way to taking a majority stake, and that it also held 31.5% in cash settled options: a total of 74.1%. The German state of Saxony holds 20.2% of VW. That left just 5.7% of 'free-floating' stock for which the hedge funds had to compete. For a brief time, VW's share price made the company worth more than ExxonMobil, the largest company in the world.
Chevron, of San Ramon, California, which recently announced the sale of its fuels marketing business in Nigeria, continues to sell its African assets. The Nigerian sale included a lubricants blending plant in Lagos. Details are at: Chevron Nigeria. Chevron’s subsidiary, Chevron Africa Holdings Limited, is selling its affiliates that it wholly owns in Benin, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, and Côte d’Ivoire, and its 65% share in Togo. The purchaser is Corlay Global S.A., a Panamanian company owned by an African-based consortium composed of MRS Holdings Ltd. and Petroci Holdings. Details are at: Cheveron West Africa
5. CNOOC to use Chevron technology in new China plant
In China, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. is building an API Group II/III plant in Huizhou, in the southern Guangdong province, where it will be an expansion of the new CNOOC fuels refinery. The lubes plant will have a capacity of 400,000 metric tonnes per year (7,700 barrel per day), and the aim is to manufacture three grades of base oils: 200,000 t/y of 220 neutral, 140,000 t/y of 100N, and 60,000 t/y of 60N, using Chevron’s trademarked Isodewaxing and Isofinishing technology. The new base oil plant, which is expected to be completed in 2010, is an expansion of a new CNOOC fuels refinery in Huizhou.
Ineos Bamble AS has agreed with Puralube Nordic AS to build an environmentally friendly lubricant oil production plant on an Ineos Polyolefins-owned site at Ronningen, Bamble in Norway. Puralube, who will build the refinery, is expecting to invest US $70.6 million in the project, which is scheduled for commission in 2010. Its purpose will be to convert waste automotive, marine and industrial oils into low-sulphur, water-white base oil lubricants for cars, and other transportation applications, and for use in industry. The waste material will be sourced domestically, from other Scandinavian countries, and from Britain and Germany, and the refinery will be capable of manufacturing 75,000 metric tonnes of new product per year. More at: Ineos release
AGCO Sisu Power, part of the AGCO Corporation, has announced the introduction of its E(3) selective catalytic reduction after-treatment system. The company says that this ‘offers an effective method for emission control while significantly improving fuel economy’. The company claims that ‘with this technology on new Tier III/Stage III A emission products, customers will see improvements in fuel efficiency of up to 5-10 % over current Tier III/Stage III A emission machines. Instead of re-circulating the exhaust gases, the E3 SCR system treats the emissions as they leave the engine by using AdBlue(TM) injected into the exhaust stream to react with Nitrous Oxide in the catalyst and effectively convert the treated gases into nitrogen and water. Additional reductions in particulate emissions will be seen compared to current Tier III designs’. For full details go to: AGCO release. Simultaneously, AGCO has also announced its new seven-cylinder, 9.8-litre engine in the 400-500 hp class. The organisation has also signed an agreement with Russia’s industrial machinery builder Concern Tractor Plants, to set up a joint venture − in which AGCO is to invest $9 million by 2011 − to assemble diesel engines in Russia.
Caterpillar continues to approve the further use of biodiesel in dilution with standard diesel for its engines. The latest approvals are for B20 biodiesel − a 20% dilution − across its range of compact and mid-range engines. More details are on the Caterpillar website at: Cat biodiesel. These engines join the previous B30 approval for C7 to C32 ACERT and 3400 and 3500 series. Meanwhile, the company is reorganizing internally by ‘aligning its machine product and marketing organizations to sharpen customer focus, position the company to achieve its 2010 and Vision 2020 goals and build deep expertise in product development. The alignment results in numerous officer changes effective January 1, 2009’. You can read all about this at: Cat realignment
Deere & Company is to form a joint venture with Ashok Leyland Limited, part of the Hinduja Group in India. The partnership will begin by making and marketing backhoes and four-wheel-drive loaders, for sale in India ‘and other markets’. Ashok Leyland is the second-largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India. Deere is the world’s largest manufacturer of equipment for agriculture and forestry. The company has provided more details of the joint venture at: Deere release
Practising hardware or materials engineers who are concerned with the wear of mechanical components may find Wear Analysis for Engineers by Raymond G. Bayer (HNB Publishing, New York, $90.00) to be a useful publication. The 360-page hardback book describes the proper analysis of wear situations, and the use of qualitative and quantitative methods to identify solutions to wear problems. The author has been a professional in industrial tribology for more than forty years, and is the author of other books on engineering approaches to wear design and resolving problems. He is a fellow of ASTM, and has been on the organization’s Wear and Corrosion Committee since the 1970s. Full details can be found at: HNB info
Many thanks to all those who took the survey featured in our last issue. Your comments have been very useful – particularly in the selection of new subjects to be covered and in the level of detail you’d like to see in the articles. In case any of our readers missed the link in that issue we’re keeping the survey open for a few more weeks. Simply click here OATS Bulletin survey. There are only 12 questions and it will literally take 1 minute or so.
The Texas, USA publication, National Oil & Lube News, 2008 Fast Lube Operators Survey includes detailed data on operations, prices, customer demographics, employees, sales, oil and equipment, other services offered, insurance and advertising. You can read all about it, look at the online issue of the magazine, and download the Survey at: NOLN survey
A new report, Lubricants: US Industry Forecasts for 2012 & 2017, suggests that demand for the product in the US will stabilize between 2007 and 2012, but will still be behind growth in the country’s GDP. Engine oils will sell more because of a predicted increase in the number of motor vehicles in use − even though longer-lasting lubes will reduce the frequency of changes − but the greater rise will be in the industrial sector. The report, by Report Buyer, is available at: US report
■ On 1 October, 2008, Galp Energia and Eni concluded the much reported transfer of Agip’s Iberian network. Galp has taken on an additional 367 service stations in Iberia, with a total Spanish network of 547 service stations. Galp has also recently acquired ExxonMobil affiliates’ fuels and certain lubricants businesses in Spain and Portugal.
■ According to The Freedonia Group, the Cleveland, Ohio-based industry research company, there is to be a reversal of the current US decline for demand in lubricants. The firm predicts an increase of almost 1% per year to 2.5 billion gallons in 2012, having a market value of some $17 billion. Full information, and details of Lubricants 2012 can be found at: Freedonia report.
■ The Board of Directors of Ciba supports BASF’s offer to acquire Ciba Holding AG, Basel, Switzerland, and has recommended acceptance to its shareholders. Based on all outstanding Ciba shares and including all net financial liabilities and pension obligations, the combined enterprise's value would be approximately €3.8 billion. Full details are at: CIBA offer.
■ Scientists at China’s Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in north-west Gansu Province, have begun to study solid lubricant samples that have been exposed to outer space. The samples were on board the Shenzou-7 spacecraft. The tests, which will take six months, are to determine how the lubricants react in a vacuum, the effects of atomic oxygen, and the 44 hours of exposure in low temperatures in outer space.
■ There are reports that General Motors is to set up a website giving details of the global oil engine specifications that it intends to introduce in two years’ time. The exercise covers all GM model year 2011 gasoline-fuelled vehicles, and the idea is to provide the same quality oil throughout its 18 plants worldwide.
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