Group III base oils boost fuel economy goals in Americas

Judith Taylor

27-Jun-2016

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Today’s passenger car original equipment manufacturers (OEM) are charged to bring about greater fuel economy. Group III base oils can be an aide in realising this goal, according to Mike Brown of SK Lubricants Americas.

Speaking at the June Meet the Market conference held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – a key meeting for South American lubricant producers and buyers – Brown, who is vice president of technology for SK’s lubricant and base oil business, offered insights on the advantages of Group III base oil technology and performance characteristics.

OEM engine oil trends include the need to have greater fuel economy because of increasingly stricter regulatory mandates, along with reduced volatility which offers enhanced operating performance and longer drain intervals.

Other items including greater compatibility with emission catalysts come along for the ride and are important in maintaining the fuel economy characteristics.

For passenger cars, the move in motor oils is toward 5W-40 SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) viscosity levels, and lower – as low as 0W-20 – all sought because of the fuel economy standards needed to meet regulatory and performance issues.

“The low viscosity market will grow,” Brown said. “It is at about 5% today and growing toward 10% expected by 2020.”

Brown pointed out that there are many types of Group III base stocks. Some of these have limited interchangeability for the OEM performance claims, leading major players to invest in the highest performance products.

There are a number of production technology routes to Group III base oils which creates variations in the broad Group III base stock industry output. These variations can be involved in the limited interchangeability aspect.

This can have a less than positive effect in meeting OEM goals if base oil substitutions are attempted without attention to interchangeability capabilities of the base stock chosen for blending to the engine oil.

Advantages of Group III base stocks include baseline integration to low viscosity engine oils, excellent low temperature properties and low evaporative loss, as well as the ability to make the ultra-low viscosity engine oil grades.

“The introduction of lower viscosity lubricants for fuel economy is the biggest challenge the lube industry has right now,” said conference speaker Margareth Carvalho of Infineum Brazil.

Carvalho went on to explain that reduced CO2 (carbon dioxide) emission goals and regulations are involved in the drive toward improving fuel economy. The engine lubricant (primarily base oil) is an enabler to reducing CO2 emissions because lower viscosity oils can lead to increased fuel economy which in turn leads to reductions in the CO2 emissions.

A key point mentioned by Carvalho is that regional markets are moving towards lower viscosity oils at paces respective of the region.

What might be a quicker uptake in the North American market, particularly in the US, could be a much slower uptake in South American countries.

Where Brazil might lead in the move to lower viscosity oils in South America, other South American countries might integrate these oils at a slower pace either because of preferences or because of less regulatory pressure or because of more complex car parks that have many vehicles older than 10 years.

Even in the North American market, Mexico’s uptake pace for light viscosity oils is likely to take longer than in the US because of the different age components involved in Mexico’s car park population.

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The automotive industry is a major global consumer of petrochemicals which contributes more than a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle. ICIS tracks the movement of petrochemical raw material costs in auto production both globally and regionally with the weighted ICIS Basket of Automotive Petrochemicals (IBAP).

ICIS produces a monthly Global Automotive report covering the major automotive chemicals markets, the auto-industry, the IBAPs and macroeconomic trends. For more information on the report and details on how to subscribe, please click here

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