Quaker Houghton last week entered partnerships with two giants of the lubricant industry’s Asian giants – Petronas Lubricants International and Idemitsu Kosan.
The agreements will offer Quaker Houghton water-soluble metalworking fluids to Idemitsu Kosan customers in Japan and Quaker Houghton’s broader portfolio of metalworking fluids to Petronas customers in Malaysia. The agreement with Petronas also calls for Quaker Houghton to offer PLI’s maintenance lubricants and industrial fluids to Quaker Houghton steel mill customers in India.
All three companies are major players in the global lubes industry. PLI and Idemitsu Kosan, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, respectively, both rank among the 20 biggest lubricant suppliers, while Quaker Houghton, which is based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, United States, is among the biggest suppliers of industrial process fluids.
In the 2000s and 2010s, the former Quaker Chemical grew steadily, largely through a long list of acquisitions that culminated with the 2017 agreement to combine with Houghton, another heavyweight in the industrial lube sector. Partnerships like those announced last week are a newer growth approach for the company.
The April 15 agreement with Idemitsu Kosan called Quaker Houghton’s portfolio “highly complementary” to the Japanese company’s lubricant offering and said the combination will enable a complete lubricant offering in the Japanese market and specifically mentioned Idemitsu Kosan customers in key industries such as automobile manufacturing, aerospace, industrial and heavy machinery.
The Petronas agreement, announced two days later, said PLI will pitch Quaker Houghton’s metalworking fluids to Malaysian customers in the automotive and industrial sectors. Quaker Houghton has significant business in India’s steel making industry.