Chevron Oronite and his successor, Bruce Chinn


1996, ACEA has traditionally delivered specification updates every two years. This time it has taken almost four, so an update was certainly due to address the new industry challenges. That was all anticipated. Nevertheless, these new updates will require significant resources. However, they also give us the opportunity to bring new, innovative solutions to the marketplace and also to differentiate ourselves from other additive manufacturers.


Chevron is a global company, but its roots are very much in the United States. When you formulate additive packages for applications, would you tend to formulate for a specific market or would you formulate for an American application and then adapt the product for European application?


BC: We are tied very closely with our customers and with their customers, so we need to understand what the marketplace has out there in terms of challenges. We formulate to meet marketplace needs wherever it is in the world. We’re a global organisation, as you say, so while we may have particular market needs in the US, there may be people that have knowledge enough in Europe or elsewhere to help us address local concerns, wherever in the world that is.


DK: Our technology centre in Rotterdam deals with marine and also automotive additives for Europe. They work very closely with the European auto-manufacturers to ensure that we have the right specs for them.


We also have the largest technology centre in Asia of any additive company, which is based in Japan. We work with the Japanese auto-manufacturers as well as auto-manufacturers throughout Asia, and in the US we have a good presence and relationship with American auto-manufacturers.


There’s currently great political uncertainty in Europe with Brexit. Will this have an impact on Chevron Oronite’s investment decisions in


key markets, and managing markets that might fragment in the future?


k t th t i ht


BC: I wouldn’t say it’s having a material impact on our investment decisions, although obviously we monitor markets closely. We’ve operated for over 100 years, so obviously in that time we’ve dealt with numerous sea changes and different political climates; different configuration of borders, government upheavals. Brexit is just another example of many such situations through which Oronite has successfully managed its business. It’s also one of the benefits of being tied to Chevron, and having such a vast range of expertise to tap into in our enterprise to help manage transitions like this.


For Oronite a good portion of our research, sales and manufacturing operations and facilities for Europe, Africa and the Middle East are all based in France, so we don’t really see Brexit having any significant impact on those locations or their operations. But of course the UK is an important market for our products, and that really won’t change either.


On the subject of OEMs and the automotive sector, in January Fuchs has predicted a significant downturn of about 50% in automotive lubricant demand arising from the use of hybrid and electrical engines, but also a decrease in metalworking fluids as the number of engineered components in an electrically propelled car is very much lower than traditional vehicles.


In terms of looking at that sector, how do you manage relationships with OEMs when you’re facing a significant challenge in terms of your operating environment in the future?


DK: We still see good, steady growth of internal combustion engines, because they get more efficient every year, and some of the new technologies that we’ve developed have aided that. This peak demand for hydrocarbons is very much, we think, the extreme case. If the world meets the 440 ppm CO2


scenario, Continued on page 24 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.144 APRIL 2018 23


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