Fuchs Group opened a 20,000 metric tons per year lubricants blending plant in Vietnam to serve growing demand in the region and to speed its response to local market demands, the German independent lubricants blender announced yesterday.
The company said the investment of €9 million (U.S. $9.6 million) in the will also expand and diversify the range of Fuchs products in Vietnam to suit the Vietnamese market’s strong growth potential. The facility was built to accommodate expansion in a second phase of construction.
The new plant in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province in southeast Vietnam covers 20,000 square meters and will be expanded in two construction phases, with the first already completed. The plant consists of offices, laboratory, production and filling, a tank farm and a warehouse. The site’s production portfolio includes automotive oils, industrial oils, metalworking fluids and products for the mining industry, which Fuchs Vietnam will be able to offer to its customers from a single source in the future. Production will start in the fourth quarter.
Stefan Fuchs, chairman of the executive board Fuchs SE, expressed thanks to its joint venture partner, Nguyen Mai Son, for his vision and commitment to Fuchs and the Vietnamese market. “Without his support, the construction would not have been possible,” Stefan Fuchs said in a press release. “Our Vietnamese joint venture with the owner of STD & S Co. Ltd. has paved the way for Fuchs Group in this important market and laid the foundation for another important base in Asia.”
Fuchs Vietnam Managing Director Daniel Henn said the company was “celebrating the expansion of our global presence and the strengthening of our local capabilities here at the right time, as Vietnam is an emerging market with great growth potential and plays a key role in diversifying supply chains.”
Fuchs has had a sales office in Vietnam since 2013. In 2021, Fuchs Group acquired 70% of the lubricants business of STD & S Co. Ltd., a Vietnam-based distributor of specialty lubricants. The business was integrated into the subsidiary Fuchs Lubricants Vietnam Co. Ltd., in which the owner of STD & S holds a 30% share. By the end of this year, Fuchs Lubricants Vietnam plants to increase its workforce to 35 employees. In fiscal year 2022, the company’s sales were in the mid-single-digit million range.