Was just reading Heinz Bloch article "Synthetic Lubricant Performance Trade-Offs" in LFP.

One thing Heinz wrote struck me as I have have actually grilled a few "major" Big-name brands about this very subject.

Here is the quote from Heinz:

"It is fair to say that little has been written about the fact that Synthesized Hyrdocarbons fluids (from even big-name brands) can exhibit markedly lower performance than fluids marketed by their smaller competitors. The difference stems from the FACT that smaller formulators at times have superior additives know-how."

I know Heinz is the Godfather of Industrial Machinery Lubrication - but when I have taken very similar questions to a few of the "big-names" they have answered with a pretty impressive engineering and R&D resource bank.

Exxon made like $90 billion dollars last quarter alone so I would imagine they can invest as much as they want into the science of lubrication.

I am interested to find out if you think that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, etc... are behind the smaller additive producers in terms of engineering and additive know-how? If so - can you point to some concrete examples of where a smaller additive company has solved a problem the majors have not?

Thanks for any input you can share.

Terry O

That quote sounds kind of bizarre to me as well.

One thing to consider is that the "big guys" have a very broad range of activities from exploration to drilling to refining to mixing and additives. They have a big volume in what I think are standard products and a much smaller volume in high-end, high-performance products.

If you're a little guy and your going to take those products from the big guys and mix them and put in some addivites and resell, the only thing you have to add is your expertise in mixing and additives (and marketing?).

Is Royal Purple from a little guy really better than the high-end performance products from big guys like Exxon? Beats me. There's a lot of mystery in lubrication.

How about X-1R which is biodegrable?http://www.spaceconnection.org/productwindow.cfm?id=29

How about the xado technology which is claimed to be self-healing?
http://www.xado-usa.com/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

quote:

If you're a little guy and your going to take those products from the big guys and mix them and put in some addivites and resell, the only thing you have to add is your expertise in mixing and additives (and marketing?).

A little user is not interesting for the big guys.
Every user is looking for the service company that could help him with his problems. If I am John Doe and using only 4 drums a year, I will not have access to the R&D services of Shell, Exxon, Texaco, BP etc..

In most cases some sales representative is the most you can get. Then you must be lucky that this representative is a technical person, and not someone whose experience with the product comes from reading the label.

Small companies can give a personalized and flexible service to the client, and that is what the client pays for.

Why use Royal Purple?

http://www.royalpurple.com/techa/whyrpa.html

It appears to be on the high performance end. How is the price per unit?

Terry, how many small formulators were mentioned in the article to make the conclusion? Just one or several? P/s Tried to get hold the article but couldn't find it in internet search. Which month of LFP (Lubrication & Fluid Power) is it?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

It is in the July/August 2006 issue.

Heinz has emailed me as we are having this discussion offline as well. Obviously there are some sensitivities relating to which big names and which formulators.

The key is the "AT TIMES" statement - which is echoed by Steven.

The rub is - to know when you are in the "AT TIMES" and when you are wasting your time and possibly causing damage.

I can imagine the small formulators dancing in the streets as a result of this article - and my hat is off to Heinz for saying what he said.

Once again - there is no silver bullet solution put forth here - just a possiblity that if applied correctly - at times - you can find a lubrication solution at a smaller formulator that is not available from the majors.

Terry O

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Terrence O'Hanlon,

Terrence,

When I was in the surface mining industry, we found many applications that the "Big Name" boys could or would not address. Most of them were in the dragline and shovel gearcase areas. We had heavy wear (from heavy pressures) in most of our boxes, especially in the drags. The solution offered by the two "big boys" were actually run of the mill, heavy wear and oxidation additive gear box oils. Their answer to the problem was to increase the viscosity.
Two "smaller players" actually compared our problems to other mines with the same problem, and after talking to the individuals at those mines (names and phones numbers given by salesmen of the smaller players), we went with both of the smaller companies. The products offered did perform like they said they would.
I would agree with the staement above that the smaller companies offer a better service than the larger companies.
I found we had regular lubrication issues that the larger company products took care of just fine, at a lower price. But we also had problem lubrication issues that we paid a premium to solve, which in the end was cost justifiable.
One of the big differences was also alluded to above, in that the salesman for the larger company was a typical salesman, who although knew about their companies products, did not seem to know much about how to solve a problem like ours, or wasn't interested in putting in the time to solve it.
The smaller companies took the time to go out to the machines, get dirty, and explain what their products would do and how they did it.
The big boys may have the products, but the smaller boys had the service. We paid for that, and it was well worth it in the areas we needed help.

Dave

quote:

I am interested to find out if you think that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, etc... are behind the smaller additive producers in terms of engineering and additive know-how? If so - can you point to some concrete examples of where a smaller additive company has solved a problem the majors have not?

Thus far it seems that only Dave has approached a concrete example. I would think that the big boys even the one with the double cross (xx) in their name would have application engineers. One would want to talk to an application engineer rather than a salesman.

The salesman wants to push what he has or needs to push. An application engineer might be able to offer a solution.

If I had a special application that's what I would do, but I don't know that I would get the usual (better or worse?) treatment.

Bill it depends how big you are, the small vendor can create a batch easily, maybe a 50 barrel tank for testing.
Where for the big boys, a batch could start at a minimum of 10.000 barrels.

For instance pilot plants for crude processing are "rented" by the big licensors for predicting the beheaviour of the plant. Although there are very small amounts processed, compared to the final output, the costs are skyhigh. Also the "overhead" costs in terms of salary/renting etc. are higher at the big player.
If an application that could save you lets say $30.000 a year, are you willing to put the tripple in R&D? The client will have to pay these costs.

Bill,

Supposedly the salesman was in contact with the "Application Engineer", who agreed with the salesmans recommendation of increased vis, high wear and oxidation. I never got to talk to any of the "App Engineers". What I did do though was took samples of several of the big boys and the small players recommended oils, and had the Falex corp run some tests. We came up with some, and they ran the standard 4 ball, etc.
Guess what, the little guy beat the dickens out of the big boys. We had them run the tests a little longer and under a higher PSI than they normally would, and one test was purely sliding friction, but the results of two of those little guys were way above the rest.
We went with them.
I still would in problem applications.

An added edit. You are right about the salesman, however, the salesmen from the little companies were actually part owners, who knew quite a bit about lube. It was even better dealing with them, because as I said above, they knew what getting dirty was all about.

Dave

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RRS_Dave,

Can the smaller but better vendors cope with a lubricant consolidation ie supply all types of lubricants or just special applications?

Josh,

I'm not sure about all of them. However, the ones I dealt with could, but there was a pretty good price differential. That is why I refer to them as specialty lubes. If there is a problem, price per pound doesn't really figure into it (at least it didn't for me). The results were what counted.
I think the bigger vendors keep price per unit down by the volumes they mix.

Dave