The project comes online during a time when the global base oil market is mired in a large glut – largely because of construction and expansion of numerous Group II and III plants in the Asia-Pacific region the past few years. Still, officials predicted the joint venture, Zhuhai CleanOil Petrochemical Co., will succeed because of rising demand in China for higher quality lubricants.

They also plugged the rerefinery – as a recycler of oil products – as the type of clean industry that China needs.

Anything that is good for the environment and is profitable has to be a good idea, said CleanOil Investment Ltd. founder and Chairman Antony Louis Marden.

The rerefinery uses CleanOils own processing technology, previously employed in a Hong Kong pilot plant that the company opened in 2002.

Given that our prototype in Hong Kong has been run successfully and consistently for nearly 10 years, its time for us to take a big step forward and build a bigger, commercial scale plant, Marden said.

The finished lubricant plant will produce passenger car and heavy-duty diesel engine oils meeting the API SN and CJ-4 specifications, along with other types of automotive and industrial lubes, including hydraulic and gear oils.

Zhuhai is located just north of Macau at the mouth of the Pearl River in Southern China. The press release stated that Zhuhai CleanOil will target sales primarily to cities in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas, but it also quoted Jebsen Group Chairman Michael Jebsen as saying that the joint venture would leverage Jebsens industrial networks to sell throughout the country.

Hong Kong-based Jebsen is a diversified group with activities that range from manufacturing of consumer electronics and building materials to marketing of beverages and Porsche autos to services in broadcasting, automation and logistics.