It is probably no surprise, then, that enterprising lubricant manufacturers have joined in the development of this region with a new generation of blending plants producing many types of finished lubricants, from automotive to industrial and marine, which are being processed in the region for export.

One such new facility was set up by Apar Industries Ltd., a specialty lubricants company based in Mumbai, India. Apar Industries built a new plant in the Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, where many of the new base oils originating from within the region can be used as feedstock or raw materials in the production of a range of specialty oils.

The enterprise, a wholly owned subsidiary of Apar Industries known as Petroleum Specialities FZE, was commissioned in the second half of 2017. This facility is a highly automated specialty oils plant with capacity to produce a variety of grades of uninhibited, trace inhibited and inhibited transformer oils that meet the requirements of IEC 60296 and ASTM D3487, among others. In addition to these primary grades, the subsidiary also makes white oils and pharmaceutical products formulated and produced at the new plant.

An Apar spokesperson told LubesnGreases about what went into this venture. At almost at every turn, from the receipt of raw material to the dispatch of finished lubricants, the plant was designed to function as efficiently and profitably as possible. The plants engineers optimized the layout using the latest technology and the space available for the current unit, as well as looking to future expansion potential in adjacent plots.

The 30,000-square-meter plant has production and throughput capacity of around 100 million liters per year, combining all the various products output. It also has an integral tank farm of 36 tanks with raw material and finished product storage capacity of 18 million liters.

The large storage capacity and the relatively deep draft loading and discharge berths allow large feedstock cargoes to be accommodated, using economies of scale to Petroleum Specialities advantage. At the same time, it allows sufficient inventory to avoid any outages or unforeseen stoppages due to lack of raw materials.

The practical details are simple yet effective, with many other modern plants not incorporating such concepts as the two 10-inch-diameter feedstock pipelines, both reversible in flow. This means the pipelines can be used for receiving feedstock and raw materials, as well as loading bulk vessels with finished product for export to customers in far-flung markets.

The pipelines are also fully piggable (they can be cleaned using a device known as a pig) so that the operator can maintain 99.97 percent purity for each grade that passes through the lines, which in any plant is rare.

Product is sold using three methods. The first being in bulk through free on board delivery into the buyers receiving tanker. The second is in flexi-tanks in shipping containers, which has become a staple delivery method for lubricants to many locations where discharge shore storage is either not available or is too expensive to use. Double handling of the product can be avoided by transferring the container to inland delivery locations without fear of product contamination, which can be incurred by using third-party tanker trucks. The container can also act as temporary storage for a limited period of time, avoiding demurrage costs payable to the ship owner if the load is not discharged within an agreed time on bulk vessels. The third and last delivery mode is in light steel drums. Petroleum Specialities fully automated filling system can fill 100 drums per hour.

The entire plant is controlled by a supervisory control and data acquisition systems, known as SCADA, that manages everything from the blending process in the tanks, to the inter-tank transfer of material, up to the bulk and drum filling of finished products.

Petroleum Specialities has targeted local and international markets into which finished products can be sold. For example, in the immediate Gulf Cooperation Council area, it is focusing on customers based in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia and Oman. Looking farther afield, it has identified Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria as specific areas to develop in Africa.

This plant was perhaps not the smallest capital investment made by Apar Industries, which would not reveal the overall costs of the plant, but suffice to say that as an investment for the future, this project appears to have ticked all the required boxes.