Shell is one of the most diversified international oil company in India’s energy sector. It is a major private sector supplier of crude products and chemicals to India. Being one of the world’s leading suppliers of hydrocarbon products and services, Shell understands the needs of the customers by providing an international network of automotive-industry experts who can work with the customers to design a package of products and services that will meet the specific needs and help to increase their profitability. Shell’s latest long-life oils and greases enhances vehicle or component efficiency with innovative initial-fill lubricants. The automotive components range includes compressor oils, greases and hydraulic fluids.
Ms. Mansi Tripathy, Country Head, Shell Lubricants India Cluster, reveals her company’s diversified product offering for various applications across all verticals.
Excerpts:
Preparing for BS-VI
Meeting BS-VI norms with fuel-efficiency as a primary requirement, we at Shell Lubricants envisage greater use of superior quality base oils and better rebalanced lubricant chemistry for better volatility and oxidation requirements in lubricants. With respect to the technology, we are already equipped with product offerings to meet the 2020 emission norms in India. However, considering India is a unique market, we will ensure to use our global expertise and local experience to offer appropriate products meeting the requirements of BS-VI emission norms. Our unique Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) technology also allows us to have the flexibility to achieve fuel economy needs, all along meeting the emission norms. With our experience, our technical teams are engaging with OEMs in both heavy duty and passenger car segments to help them arrive at unique solutions and validate the same suiting typical Indian requirements.
Shell’s PurePlus Technology is a breakthrough in how passenger vehicle engine oils are formulated. It is a patented gas-to-liquid (GTL) process, developed over 40 years of research, which converts natural gas into crystal clear base oil. Base oil, usually made from crude oil, is the main component of finished oils and plays a vital role in the quality of the finished passenger vehicle engine oil. The base oil is produced at the Pearl GTL plant in Qatar, a partnership between Shell and Qatar Petroleum.
We welcome the government’s decision to leapfrog from BS-IV emission norms to BS-VI to drive a step change in reducing emissions. This is yet another example of India’s ability to leapfrog technologies. The policy changes have certainly made the industry players more aggressive towards the requisite changes. While the deadline for the BS-VI rollout is 2020, several leading car manufacturers have already rolled out models in compliance with the new policy. This is a great sign on how fast we are adapting to the norms
The challenge for the industry now is to implement this change across the various stakeholders. For the lubricant companies, especially in India, the move to BS-VI and its smooth implementation demands for them to be at par in supplying technologically advanced lubricant products when the demand rises.
R&D across different products
Shell Lubricants keenly focuses on forging partnerships for collaborative research and product development with Indian industries. In today’s industrial climate, more precise selection of viscosity is getting renewed attention. The lower density and high viscosity index of Shell GTL base oils lend themselves to potentially producing energy-efficient formulations by reducing inertial and bulk viscosity pumping energy losses and improving the thermal conductivity relative to other Group III base oils. The GTL base oils we use have several better intrinsic properties in comparison to traditional Group III base oils.
Specific to the automotive industry, Shell meets the needs of the customers by providing an international network of automotive-industry experts who can work with the customers to design a package of products and services that will cater to the specific needs and help increase their profitability. It not just helps its customers to cut production-line maintenance costs with Shell’s latest-technology long-life oils and greases but also enhance vehicle or component efficiency with innovative initial-fill lubricants. The automotive components’ product range includes compressor oils, greases and hydraulic fluids.
Oil drain intervals and replacement
Advances in equipment technology impact the requirements from the lubricant. Companies recognise, but underestimate, potential savings from effective equipment lubrication. Even the best lubricant or grease cannot perform if it is not managed correctly. Unlocking Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings hinges not just on selecting the right product but also ensuring that it is managed properly.
Shell Lubricants has helped companies achieve savings that often equal their total lubricants spend and further impact their maintenance budgets. Our commitment lies towards lowering the total cost of ownership across the value chain for all our partners.
Shell Rimula T5 E 10W-30 is one such product and adds great value in the Shell Rimula family of heavy-duty diesel engine oils.With advanced CI4+ engine oil for heavy duty diesel engines, the Shell Rimula T5 E 10W-30 diesel engine oil is one of the premier products by Shell Lubricants. Available across the country, the engine oil delivers 3% greater fuel efficiency and has a potential to save Rs. 40,000 in fuel costs on a single on highway truck annually.
Rimula T5 E 10W-30 heavy duty diesel engine oil is infused with an advanced combination of synthetic base oils (GTL) and high-performance additives helping with improved fuel economy and protection for operating pressures and temperatures. A high-performance engine oil, the Rimula T5 E is recommended by Tata Motors. The Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) technology involves converting natural gas into high-quality liquid fuels, base oils for lubricants, and other liquid products usually made from crude oil. GTL products are colourless and odourless. They contain almost none of the impurities – sulphur, aromatics and nitrogen – that are found in crude oil.
Business from commercial vehicles
Our revenue breakup across B2B and B2C segments is almost 50:50. Our strength is our varied product portfolio. For instance, during demonetisation, mining as a segment got muted for a while, but we were able to offset the same against the other growing segments. Passenger cars and commercial vehicle customers are looking for lubricants to provide total cost of ownership reduction (TCO) through extension of ODI and fuel economy.
We offer Shell Helix for passenger cars and Shell Rimula for the CV segment to enhance TCO benefits for the customer. Our strategy is to continue working with major OEM’s and develop customized lubricants for them across the CV and passenger cars segment. We strive to put the customer at the heart of what we do. In the passenger car segment, we are working with OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata and Ford and in the Commercial vehicle segment, we work closely with Tata, Volvo Eicher and Daimler.
Ultimately, our aggregated total market share in India is at about 5 per cent, however range of the same varies across the sectors we play in.