REPOR TS
Editorial Comment Lubricants Statistics
When most people hear someone mention the word statistics, their eyes glaze over and they switch off, but I hope I can keep your attention for the next two minutes.
My comment for this issue of LUBE is with my other hat on - as UKLA Executive Director. I would like to bring to your attention the fact that UK lubricants Statistics are becoming meaningless, due to the significant reduction in the number of reporting companies who participate in providing statistical returns.
I would be grateful for suggestions on ways to persuade companies to recommence participation in the UK Scheme. There are definite benefits to be gained from having access to reliable total market trend information. Speak to anyone in your marketing department and they will confirm knowing the size of total market by sub-sector is essential information for their jobs.
Quite often I am telephoned by a
UEIL President’s Report
UEIL has engaged a Brussels based company, Interel, to both act as its professional Secretary General and to increase its lobbying activity and profile within the various parts of the EU Bureaucracy.
At our most recent Board Meeting, Interel made a Presentation to the Board outlining its proposal for a Lobbying Agenda under the aegis of an EU Audit. Obviously this was targeted very specif- ically at UEIL and the lubricants sector, but even within this limited scope it was frightening in the extreme.
The issues which face our Members not only relate to new and impending Legislation, but more ominously, include EU legislators re-visiting existing pieces of legislation. This may seem normal, but what appears to be somewhat shocking is that some of these pieces of original legislation have only just impacted upon our businesses. Two specific pieces, Regulation 1400, Block Exemption and the IPPC legislation regulating the pants off some Members are still being debated in UKLA and UEIL. Clearly EU bureaucrats do not have enough challenging new areas to tackle.
member of staff from a multina- tional oil company or from an Independent manufacturer who is trying to find out the size of the UK
lubricants market. Big or small, they are unaware whether or not their company reports into the scheme. So I do see demand for the output information. The question is how to persuade companies to participate in the input of data.
Also, I am told that following the introduction of Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) many companies have found that, providing statistics has become too difficult. Is there a way to get around these difficulties?
Please email me your thoughts on this topical issue. Do you believe the UK lubricants market has reduced to only 500,000 tonnes, because that’s what the figures say, but personally I don’t think they are correct!
UKLA
President’s Report
This is a year of anniversaries – 800 years since the establishment of my city (Leeds); 400 years since the first permanent European settlement in North America (Jamestown); 300 years since the Act of Union between Scotland and England; 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. Recently, there has been much press review of Prime Minister Blair’s 10 years in power in Britain.
But, what was the lubricants world like back then in 1997?
Rod Parker
Looking at the cover of “Manufacturer” magazine, with its headline Ten Year’s Hard Labour, the emphasis is on the volume of red tape which still inhibits our businesses despite so-called attempts to reduce and de-mystify this topic by our political Leaders.
However, looking globally at the amount of regulation and red tape impacting upon our businesses and the knock-on effect of more and more onerous contractual situations designed to cover those corporations scared of our increasingly litigious society, it seems that our businesses will never be free of these constraints.
The issue for many of us therefore is competitiveness.
UEIL, UKLA and ILMA will continue to advise Members to be eternally compliant, but in practice we know that many in our industry do not comply and as such do not incur the costs of those who do.
ILMA has put great efforts behind its “Raising the Bar” campaign in the USA to improve ethics and perhaps it is time for Trade Associations in Europe to do the same to at least ensure a level playing field amidst a morass of Legislation and Red Tape.
Hugh Dowding LUBE MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 3
• Lubricant consumption was still strong in Europe; the effect of extended drain intervals (and the full migration of industry eastwards) was yet to come.
• Base oil supplies in the UK were plentiful and base oil prices were relatively low.
• BP and Castrol, Exxon and Mobil, Elf, Fina and Total were all separate, independent companies (although BP and Mobil had a European joint venture in lubricants).
• Climate change was a real concern for forward-looking people, but without (yet) any mass awareness or political momentum.
• The internet had barely started to change business.
• Hardly anyone had heard of nanotech- nology.
Certainly it was a different business environment to today’s. But, anniversaries also provoke thought about the future. The European Lubricants industry will certainly change drastically again in the next 10 years. My own expectations of possible changes by 2017 include:-
• substantial tightening of (the implemen- tation of) regulations regarding collection and reprocessing of used lubricants
• Widespread adoption of smart systems to measure oil condition in situ, on line
• Further reduction in consumption • Fundamentally: that as a society, we will have made irrevocable progress to becoming a “sustainable economy” and our industry will be leading the use of renewable, non-polluting, resources.
Peter Vickers
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