A significant portion of the world’s base oil production capacity is concentrated in a relatively small group of countries – namely the United States, China, South Korea, India, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Spain, Belgium and Italy.
This leaves the majority of countries with little or no domestic base oil production. Despite this imbalance, a few of the countries that lack substantial capacity remain noteworthy due to their potential or unique challenges.
Big Gets Bigger: Comparing World’s Biggest Base Oil Plants in 2005 and 2025
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The world’s 10 largest base oil refineries account for about a quarter of the world’s production capacity. Six of them are located in South Korea and the United States. About three-quarters of their capacity is API Group II.
The trend has been for plants to grow ever bigger. In 2005, one of the world’s largest was Baku, which 20 years ago produced 845,000 tons per year. This has since been eclipsed
Over the same period, numerous base oil refining units, especially Group I, have shut down across the world as global demand shifted and refineries were restructured or repurposed.
The majority of them were Group I units. While the grade still has a firm place in the finished lubricants market, it is slowly being pushed out by Group II base stocks, which can often be less expensive. This trend continued in 2023 when Eneos closed a Group I plant in Japan and Sapref shuttered a Group I facility in South Africa.
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