Sri Lankas lube market grew at 6.8 percent to 23.4 billion rupees (US$156 million) in 2015, with 10.1 percent growth in automotive lube and 7.7 percent increase in industrial lube, the lubricant market report 2015, compiled by Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) said. However marine lubricant market has shown a reduction of 37.7 percent in 2015 compared to year 2014 while greases market has shown a moderate growth of 4.7 percent.
In the automotive lubricants market segment the highest growth is shown in four stroke motorcycle oil with an increase of 29 percent and petrol vehicle lubricants have increased by 14.8 percent.
This is undoubtedly due to large increase in imports of motorcycles and gasoline driven cars during 2015. The Commission says in the report.
The diesel vehicle lubricant has shown an increase of only 2.3 percent while gear oil consumption has increased by 12.5 percent. Automatic transmission fluid consumption has increased by only 2.8 percent, which appears to be relatively low compared to the increase in gasoline engine lubricants.
Virtually all the increase in gasoline engine oil is in multi-grade oils, amounting to 90 percent of the increase. Surprisingly the multi-grade oil consumption in the diesel engine oil segment show a decline of 11 percent compared to the previous year. It is appears as the diesel lubricant consumers are switching from multi-grade to mono-grade., The Commission added.
Currently, 13 operators share Sri Lankas lubricant market, who are authorized to import, export, sell, supply and distribute lubricants, while only three operators among them, are authorized to blend lubricants. Around 75 percent of the blending was carried out at the lube blending plant of Chevron, 20 percent was produced at lube blending plant belonging to IOC and remaining 5 percent was produced by Laugfs Holdings Limited.
Chevron Ceylon leads with a lubricant market share of 47.58 percent in 2015, with its nearest competitor, Indian Oil Corporation Limited at 14.86 percent of market share. Ceylon Petroleum Corporation follows at third position at 9.19 percent in 2015. Following Ceylon Petroleum in percent lubricant market share is Bharat Petroleum at 5.09, Laugfs Holdings at 4.93, ExxonMobil at 4.93, Sinopec at 2.63, BP at 2.62, Toyota Tsusho at 2.56, Shell at 2.44, Ashland/Valvoline at 2.24, Total at 0.83 and Motul at 0.10.
During the year 2015, 37,797 KL of lubricants were produced (blended) locally, while a total of 3,167 KL of lubricants were exported to regional markets up by 8 percent with respect to year 2014.
The Government of Sri Lanka receives income from the authorized parties by way of a bi-annual fixed and in some cases a variable registration fee, which is equivalent to 1 million rupees or 0.5 percent of total invoiced sales for that period, whichever is higher, subject to a maximum of five million rupees. In 2015, the total recognized registration fee to the Government is approximately 74 million rupees which is a 7 percent boost compared to the previous year, the report said.
To view the complete report, click here
