Conoil Plays Big in Nigeria’s Lubricant Market
One of Nigeria’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 marks 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 over the weekend, the company will invest over N5 billion to build a new lubricant manufacturing plant and filling lines, in addition to its stateof-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 to one 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.
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 offspecifications imported engine oil. The DPR in particular, raised alarm over the negative environmental and economic impact of the quasi-lubricant substances.
Lubricants are technologydriven products with valueaddition to base oil, one of the refined byproducts. 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.