Rosneft, one of Russia’s biggest lubricants marketers, increased its supply of automotive lubricants in 2012 and recently introduced two key products, the company said.
Russia’s biggest crude oil producer increased its supply to AvtoVAZ, one of Rosneft’s key customers, by 65 percent in 2012, compared to the year before, a plant’s spokesperson told Lube Report on Tuesday. The lubricants are being made at the Novokuibyshevsk lubricants and additives plant. “At this moment we are covering virtually all the lubricant needs of AvtoVAZ,” Vladimir Fomin, plant’s general director, told Itar-Tass state news agency.
In March 2012 Rosneft and Togliatti-based AvtoVAZ, Russias biggest carmaker, signed a strategic deal that includes partnering to develop new automotive lubricants. Hence, in November 2012, Rosnefts new brand, Rosneft Maximum Service, became the factory-fill oil for the new Lada car. “This synthetic product can increase the new Lada cars oil change interval to 15,000 kilometers. Also, it can be used in the new engines with Euro IV emissions reduction specification,” Rosneft said.
In December the plant introduced its new transmission lubricant under the Rosneft Kinetic brand. “This product is slated for factory fill in Lada’s transmission and can be used for life or up to 120,000 km without gear oil change,” the company said. Serial production of Rosneft Kinetic is slated for the first quarter of 2013.
The Novokuibyshevsk 100,000 tons per year lubricants and additives plant is at the same location as Rosneft’s refinery and its 200,000 t/y Group I base oil plant. The oil major operates two more lubricants production facilities, a 300,000 t/y Group I base oil plant in Angarsk, in Russia’s Far East, and Nefteprodukt, a speciality lubricants plant in Moscow.
After Lukoil, Moscow-based Rosneft is the countrys second largest lubricants marketer. In 2011 it produced 468,000 tons of lubricants and base oils, and held a 20 percent share of the Russian lubricants market, according to the Moscow-based InfoTek consultancy.
In 2012 the Novokibyshevsk refinery produced 386,000 tons of base oils and finished products, or almost 90 percent of Rosneft’s total lubricants production, the company said. The plant sells its products in 49 Russian cities and regions, while 29 percent of its production is exported to Germany, Poland, Ukraine Finland, Hungary and the three Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.