One of the country’s major oil
marketers, Conoil plc, has reeled out plans to play big in the nation’s
lubricant market, which is projected to hit the N250 billion mark by the
end of 2015.
The projected all-time high revenue from
lubricant business is predicated on the expected upsurge in the demand
for lubricants by the automobile and industrial sub-sectors of the
economy.
According to a statement issued by
Conoil management, the company will invest over N5 billion to build a
new lubricant manufacturing plant and filling lines, in addition to its
state-of-the-art lubricant plant in Apapa, Lagos, to significantly
increase its engine oil production capacity.
This will put the company in good stead
to take huge advantage of the projected growth in the domestic lubricant
market and invariably skyrocket its lubricant contribution to its
overall turnover.
The substantial increase in lubricant
production, according to Conoil, is projected to boost the company’s
bottom-line while also increasing significantly its industry share in
the lubricant segment.
Conoil currently ranks as one of the
nation’s topmost marketers of quality lubricants with a reputation for
reliability and unsurpassed performance.
Its popular lubricant brands of Quatro
and Golden Super Motor oil hold top positions in the market and are
adjudged the brand of choice. The company also boasts of wide range of
industrial lubricants for applications in manufacturing, textile,
cement, breweries, oil exploration and producing companies, and
transmission oils for the transmission and gear system of vehicles.
With a total consumption of 600 million
litres, according to industry sources, which amounted for 1 percent of
the world’s total demand, Nigeria ranked as the third largest consumer
of lubricating oils with gross earnings of N150 billion in 2013.
Notwithstanding the huge potentials and
contributions of the lubricant business to the growth of the nation’s
economy, the market is threatened by the importation of sub-standard and
off-spec finished lubricants from the Far East.
It would be recalled that both the
Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and industry stakeholders
recently expressed concern that the local lubricant market has become a
dumping ground for sub-standard and off-specifications imported engine
oil. The DPR in particular, raised alarm over the negative environmental
and economic impact of the quasi-lubricant substances.
Lubricants are technology-driven
products with value-addition to base oil, one of the refined by
products. They are necessary products to guarantee energy-savings,
cost-effective and maintenance of plant and machinery in industry in
order to sustain the nation’s industrial growth and economy in general.
Olusola Bello
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