State-owned Rosneft is considered strategically one of the most important energy companies in Russia’s energy sector. In 2018, the company centered its policy on import substitution and a push for more domestic production.

Last year, Rosneft’s Novokuibyshevsk Petrochemical Co. started to develop a pilot plant for production of polyalphaolefin base oils. The company also patented its first lubricant additive package for extreme weather hydraulic oils.

“The additive package is meant to substitute [for] the imported analogues, and it gives competitive advantage to develop our own energy effective hydraulic oils of HVLP type for industrial application and mobile machinery,” the company said. HVLP refers to premium antiwear hydraulic fluids with good thermal and oxidation stability for use in mobile and stationary high-pressure hydraulic systems.

In 2019, Rosneft continued making fire-resistant turbine oils that are used in nuclear power plants. “The waste turbine oil is [now] purified and regenerated and can be used to wash the lubrication systems of new and repaired turbines,” Rosneft said.

In 2017 Rosneft entered the India’s refining market by acquiring 49 percent of Essar Oil Ltd., and last year the partner company in the joint venture, Nayara Energy Ltd., launched its first railway terminal for fuels and lubricants. The terminal is located on 200,000 square meters in Wardha, state of Maharashtra, and has capacity to store 16 million liters of fuels and lubricants, Rosneft said in the annual report.

The company’s research and development units are currently working to develop food-grade white oils, Group IV base oils and synthetic, high–viscosity, low-temperature base oils. All products are scheduled for commercial production by 2025, Rosneft said.