Lubricants Evolve with Eye on Sustainability

By: Ryan Gray

29 August 2024 at 23:25

Many of the exhibitors attending the Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo for the past several years have decidedly transitioned to featuring green energy for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Much of that reason has to do with unprecedented federal funding for electric vehicles and infrastructure.

But amid the growing EV footprint, a 125-year-old company that drew its name from castor oil and transitioned to become a global leader in producing petroleum-based oil and lubricants stood out at the Las Vegas Convention Center in late May for its sustainability game plan.

A month earlier, Castrol introduced MoreCircular, its new brand for the collection of used lubricant and re-refining it to the same quality as newly lubricant for reintroduction into fleets. Castrol is working with environmental services company SafetyKleen Sustainability Solutions, a subsidiary of Clean Harbors, for a “one-stop-shop solution for lubricant supply and collection,” Castrol said in April.

The goal, the company added, is to provide lower-carbon-footprint lubricants that meet the same high performance and quality standards of newly produced lubricants. “Responsible collection” is available from anywhere in the continental U.S.

**Andreas Osbar, Castrol Americas President/CEO**

“We’re open for business,” Andreas Osbar, president and CEO of Castrol Americas, told School Transportation News on the ACT Expo exhibit floor on May 21.

Despite the five-year, $5 billion Environmental Protection Agency Clean School Bus Program pushing the adoption of electric school buses, Osbar said he is well aware that at least 80 percent of the school bus industry continues to operate on diesel or at least traditional engine lubricants. And with MoreCircular, he said fleet managers no longer need to sacrifice quality for a reduced carbon footprint.

“The operating expense for a fleet operator comes from how often do I need to change the oil and what does the oil cost me,” Osbar continued. “What we take pride in over the last two decades, especially in the refuse segment or the construction segment, is that we’ve helped our customers to maximize drain intervals and to also effectively get into preventive maintenance. We can tell a customer something is wrong with the equipment, and we’d recommend taking maintenance or [at] minimum changing the oil. Now we can do that even combined with lower carbon footprint.”

Transforming lubricants has been a big part of Osbar’s job, even before being named to his current post in October 2022. Previously, he was vice president of transformation for Castrol Lubricants, and before that a consultant leading the development and implementation of the negotiation strategy of Europe’s largest utility for a large-scale transformation program. He also served in various roles of lubricant development and sales, including at BP, which aquired Castrol in 2000.

STN sat down with Osbar at ACT Expo to learn more about MoreCircular and what it could mean for fleet operators.

Editor’s note — STN is an official media sponsor of ACT Expo. The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

STN: Castrol was the only oil-based company at ACT Expo. Why MoreCircular and what does it do?
Osbar: We have a very clear commitment to make the company net-zero carbon and also to help customers as well as countries and regions on their pathway to decarbonization. So, this whole topic of finding ways to reduce hydrocarbon, that’s kind of big. We at Castrol have passed a strategy that’s called Castrol Path 360, which is our commitment to basically halve the carbon intensity of our products until 2030 [and be a net zero brand by 2050, according to BP]. If you then look at the options that you have, most of the carbon footprint that you can reduce is around the materials that you use, in order to produce the lubricant. When I stepped into the role here, we looked at the landscape. What we found was that the re-refining industry, first of all, was in a pretty good place. And also, the collection of waste [in the] industry was pretty well penetrated, there’s a lot more to be done, because only 20 percent of the waste oil is actually getting collected in the U.S. But at least there is 20 percent. In some other markets, in Southeast Asia, China, it is actually less than that. One thing that we then did very early on is enter into conversations with SafetyKleen because the challenge previously obviously was, hey, you have redefined base oil, but the quality of that was deemed inferior. We had to trade off between the lower carbon product and the premium quality. And what we’ve done together with SafetyKleen and through our technology investment is to bring the quality of a product, including re-refined base oil, to the premium quality of that we have as Castrol. And tat’s I think the innovation. We then obviously said for this to become really convenient and meaningful to customers we have to combine both collection as well as the sale of re-refined into one offer. That’s what MoreCircular is all about.

STN: How does this solution fit with emerging predictive, AI-based analytics and actionable maintenance items?
Osbar: Our current offering is a combination of product, in-service and used oil analysis. Effectively, we are overlaying algorithms already to used oil sample data. Through two decades of datasets, various equipments, various types of engines, for various operating conditions, we can tell when something’s not right. And we can even make recommendations with regard to maintenance intervals, what type of equipment might be actually better suited for a certain operating condition. What we’re now exploring to come back to your question is to partner with Intangles, which is a basically a telemetry
provider. We have an exclusive relationship with them. And what we’re now doing is to bring our used oil analysis data together with them to have an integrated offering for fleet managers. And that again, in combination with MoreCircular, I think it is going to be a very powerful value proposition that we’d love to share with more and more fleets throughout the U.S.

STN: Can you talk a little bit more about the relationship with SafetyKleen? What is the company doing for Castrol and MoreCircular? How did you how did that relationship come together?
Osbar: We looked strategically at the market and said, Look, who are the biggest and most widely spread in the sense that give us most coverage? Because one key thing for us was whatever we do, it needs to be nationwide available in the U.S. Whether you are in Oregon or Washington State, down in Florida, you need to be able to provide the same service and the same product quality wherever you are. And if you apply that lens, there aren’t that many players that are available. SafetyKleen right from the get-go has been a great partner. We’ve been talking about a collection partnership, where we would, if a customer is interested in MoreCircular, say, hey, that waste oil that you have it’s going to be picked up by SafetyKleen, and SafetyKleen guarantees that a minimum of 95 percent of that collection is actually being put back into re-refining and being effectively recycled. And the great thing is because of their operation and the great business that [Clean Harbors Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer] Alan McKim, [SafetyKleen President] Brian Weber and that team have built, they can offer the same service level regardless where you are in the states. On the re-refining space, we’ve done quite a lot of work together on the technology front to get a formulation based on their base oil that is high quality but it does behave a little bit different than virgin base oil. But to get that to the same quality level and to the same quality standard than the usual Castrol product, right. And on those two things, we have collaborated. And we’re both excited about the prospect of this because we believe it can potentially be a transformative moment for the lubricants industry in the U.S.

STN: Despite the ramp up to EV, there’s going to be diesel, gasoline or propane operating in school buses for some time.
Osbar: As long as there’s an internal combustion engine, whether it’s in a hybrid application, or regardless of the fuel type, we feel pretty confident that we can offer the right product range with MoreCircular that serves the respective fleets. Obviously in electric vehicles, there’s no motor oil. We also have offerings, but that goes more into our EV fluids, right, because in an electric vehicle you still have lubrication points. They’re fundamentally different. So, we feel pretty good about that. And we know that the future powertrain situation for the commercial vehicle and heavy-duty space including school buses, that’s going to be diverse. I think that’s the best way to describe it. A lot of it will depend on availability and affordability of different commodities. Hydrogen might play a role, depending on the availability and the affordability of a fuel cell. You could also find that hydrogen might be used in an internal combustion engine, that might happen, right. We’ve been working with a few companies in Europe to trial that also. And then you also need a lubricant for that. So, I think we’re in a good place. They’re agnostic of that. I think the important piece is we have a solution available for customers that can save between 20 to 40 percent of Scope 3 CO2 emissions, and we feel that is a significant contribution, if somebody is serious about decarbonization.

STN: Tell us more about EV lubricants.
Osbar: They are different because you have got to think, first of all, in the electric engine itself, there’s obviously nothing. There is no piston, there isn’t anything to be lubricated. But then there is a bearing that you need in an electric motor that needs grease. That’s something that we’re looking into. And then there is still a transmission, right, and that transmission does need to be lubricated. Now, with electrical power, you basically need dielectric (insulating) products that do not interfere with the electricity that is basically around it, right. And that’s why we’ve been investing in it for the last 10 years. And we have a market leading position actually on the fluids side. That’s something that we’re excited about that we continue to work with OEMs. And we also believe that there’s a third lubrication point that’s upcoming, which is around thermal management, which is basically advanced cooling solutions of batteries. That’s also something that we’re actively looking into.

STN: Might EV fluids be available for recapture by MoreCircular?
Osbar: Some of them are filled for life by definition, others will have service intervals. Wherever there are service intervals, our intent is to try to get them into a circular mode. Now, the composition of these fluids is different. And that’s overall going to be the challenge. As the engine technology becomes more advanced, the requirements and lubricants change. Usually, there’s a fuel efficiency and viscosity reduction, which means that the lubricants have to be thinner to reduce friction and make the engine more efficient. And for that you need different and higher quality base stocks and producing them re-refined. That’s a challenge. But again, that’s something that we’re actively looking into together with our partner SafetyKleen to ensure that we stay ahead of the sort of technical frontier.

STN: And ultimately a product like MoreCircular is better than disposing fluids.
Osbar: The worst thing for everybody including the environment, is some stuff getting disposed into the environment. That’s the worst. The second worst thing is if it’s getting burned because that produces hydrocarbons. The best thing is getting recycled. And again, I think we’re giving fleet operators and customers choice because you can have a virgin product that’s same as it always been for the last 20 to 30 years, or you can get into a lower carbon footprint product, which is ours that is the same quality. And that’s just a greater choice. And I think that’s a good thing.

STN: Thank you.

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