Specialty lubricant manufacturer Moresco Corp has started construction of a plant in Haining city, Zhejiang province, in Eastern China, and the plant is expected to be operational by the end of November, according to an April 13 announcement.
The company was asked to move from its current location by the end of this year due to government land re-development plans aimed at fostering urbanization and commercialization. Moresco will move the plant from Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Construction started in February. The plant manufactures specialty lubricants and hot melt adhesives mainly for the automotive industry.
Moresco reported that its specialty lubricant sales increased 16% to ¥15.1 billion (U.S.$112.4 million) for its fiscal year that goes from March 1, 2022, to Feb. 28, 2023. The company said that markets in Southeast Asia recovered and grew, offsetting a drop in domestic motor vehicle sales. Growth occurred in vacuum pump oil, hydraulic fluids, cutting fluids, forging lubricants and the company’s biggest functional fluids product market, die-casting fluids. However, sales of synthetic lubricants fell 13.7% to ¥1.7 billion, compared to the previous year.
Sales of sulfonates, used as an additive for metalworking fluids, increased by 9% to ¥4 billion.
Moresco forecasted that 56% of global motor vehicles will be made up of electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, fuel-cell vehicles and other alternatives, while internal combustion engines vehicles will drop to 44% in 2035.
ICEs are expected to have more than 50% share of the global motor vehicles population in 2030, but “we expect the growth of EVs to continue to be steady,” Moresco CEO Morozumi Motohisa said in a video conference to investors in November last year.
“The market for new energy cars has been growing in China and Europe,” he added.
The company forecasts Europe to have the largest share of new energy motor vehicles, 41%, followed by China at 40%, and North America at 16% in 2022. Globally the total number of new energy motor vehicles is expected to reach 5.4 million units this year and then to nearly double to 10.6 million units in 2025 and triple to 36 million units a decade later.