Shell last week announced that it plans to set up a lubricants technical centre in Shanghai next year to work closer with customers in the region.
Selda Gunsel, vice president for downstream global commercial technology of Shell Global Solution Downstream, said that the centre, in the setting of which she has played a key role, would be up and running in the first quarter of 2014.
The research and development and the co-engineering between lubricant-makers and the automotive original equipment manufacturer will enable the lubricant users to increase the performance of vehicles or machinery and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, Selda said. She added that the lubricant-makers and engine-makers need to work closer on product development as both have to jointly test the products in different climates and locations.
On August 16, 2011, Shell announced that it had opened its first Lubricants Technical Service Centre in China, located in Zhuhai, Guangdong province.
In addition to the Lubricants Technical Service Centres, Shell currently has six lubricant blending plants in China. Shell announced in August 2012 that it plans to build a seventh and one of Shells largest lubricants blending plants worldwide, in Tianjin, near Beijing, in northern China, with 300 million liters per year capacity initially, and potential to expand to 500 million liters per year.
Shell celebrated the opening of its 18th, and largest, grease plant on January 18, 2013, located in Zhuhai, China, to make a range of Lithium, Lithium Calcium and Lithium Complex greases. The plant has a production capacity of 30,000 tonnes of greases a year, with the potential to be expanded to 40,000 tonnes a year.
