TALKING HEADS
Automotive threat or
Hugh Dowding, Vice-President Motul SA
All change please
The lubricants industry as we know it today has always been subject to market change since its inception over 100 years ago. Change is nothing new to a sector whose fortunes have mirrored the development of our economic society.
In the early days keen entrepreneurs and market innovators went from door to door selling candles and then lamp oil. The advent of the Model T Ford in 1908 led the way for mass mobilisation of individuals as motorists and then as lubricant consumers. Companies followed suit and for the next 100 years lubricants followed consumers who followed their vehicles.
Over the past fifty years the pace of change in the automotive sector has increased. Single or mono grades of engine oil gave way to more modern multigrades. Traditional hydrocarbon lubricants were reformulated as synthetic oils. Nowadays modern vehicles run on smaller oil sumps, consume less lubricants between service intervals and their engines operate at higher temperatures.
This is all part of continual change in a marketplace driven by technological development. And it hasn’t stopped evolving or changing.
The lubricant market has traditionally been dominated by the seven sisters or major oil companies. Over recent decades many of the majors have divested downstream assets of petrol stations or direct lubricant distribution that has made way for a new breed of super-independents. Fuchs, a top ten lubricant company is typical of this market development whereby they do not own their own exploration fields or refineries but have built a global
46 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.145 JUNE 2018 TWO INDUSTRY
business on trading, blending and distribution without the need to own upstream assets.
The market is constantly consolidating where mergers have brought about growth in otherwise low-growth mature western markets leaving some companies to look east to maintain their momentum. This is nothing new, Motul was established in 1853 from French origin and today is firmly established as a major supplier across 80 countries worldwide. In the UK companies like RS Clare still thrive in a competitive market having been established since 1748 as UK’s longest established manufacturer of industrial lubricants.
So where does this leave the automotive sector? Certainly electric cars or hybrids are on the rise, promoted by regulators and governments alike although their uptake amongst consumers has not been as enthusiastic. It may be many years before alternate fuel vehicles reach a tipping point in the market and questions still remain about their sustainability given the shortage of lithium and, in the UK at least, the lack of capacity in the national grid to support mass electrical transportation.
However one thing is certain, the automotive lubricant market in another one hundred years will bear little resemblance to the market as we know it today.
LINK
www.motul.com
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