Saudi Arabia’s Luberef to start group II base oils sales by Jan 2018

DUBAI (ICIS)–Saudi Aramco Base Oil Company (Luberef) expects to be able to begin supplying Group II base oils commercially by late-December or early January 2018, a company official said on Tuesday at the 14th ICIS Middle Eastern Base Oils & Lubricants conference underway in Dubai.

Gerard Heaton, director of marketing at Luberef said the company is currently well into the testing phase of its plan to expand its product offering into the Group II sector.

The company expects to achieve on-spec production of Group II base oils around end-November/early-December. It would need about a month to build inventories after which the products would be available for commercial sales to the market.

The company currently operates two units at Yanbu and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia with nameplate capacities of 280,000 tonnes/year and 270,000 tonnes/year, respectively. Both plants presently produce Group I SN150, SN500 and brightstock grades