Small and medium-sized lubricant companies hit the road to survive "local market"

In 2012, the development of China's lubricant industry quietly changed. Lubricating oil industry experienced rapid growth in 2011 after experiencing rapid growth for more than a decade. The annual output was 8,265,500 tons, a decrease of 0.325 million tons from 2010. The total output has experienced a negative growth, and the competition for the overall market share of lubricants has also become more intense.

This is particularly manifested in the competition in the high-end market of lubricants.

This reporter learned that foreign brands such as Shell, Castrol, and Mobil all rushed to invest and build in China. Taking the leading brand of foreign capital Shell as an example, it has successively established 6 lube oil blending farms in several major cities in China. It is expected that the Tianjin Nangang project, which cost US$100 million to build, will also be groundbreaking recently. The old brands such as the Great Wall, Kunlun, etc., which are ranked in the “national team” are also doing their part. Kunlun and Great Wall are still the consumer's preferred brands, and they firmly control the market share of domestic lubricants by 60%.

Given the fierce market competition, what kind of measures should be taken by SMEs that are in a weak position in the lubricants industry?

Heavy attack on "local market"

Dongfeng Lubricating Oil Technology Director Chen Qi pointed out that the rapid development of China's lubricants market has become an arena for foreign oil companies to compete with each other. The game between national brands and foreign brands in the high-end market will be quite long in the Chinese lubricant industry. The main theme of the time. For medium and small lubricating oil enterprises, medium and small enterprises do not mean that they do not have the strength to compete, but to compete requires SMEs to learn to better integrate their own resources, to create an accurate and reasonable positioning for their own products, in order to promote The local market has formed a strong competitiveness.

Insiders pointed out that leading products, leading channels, and leading regions are more conducive to SMEs heavily investing in local markets, and it is easy to deploy enterprise resources for intensive cultivation.

The reporter learned that some small and medium-sized enterprises have started a series of trials in accordance with the above ideas and achieved good results.

Kunshan Jiamei Lubricating Oil Company, located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, is a Canadian lubricant oil manufacturer, Jiamei Lubricant, which was established in China in 2005 and is responsible for the overall operations of Lubricants' lubricants in the domestic East China market. Kunshan is one of the most important bases for machine tool processing in China and around the world. It has brought together a large number of world-renowned lubricant brands and also has a large number of low-end lubricant manufacturers and merchant groups. It is a central city for each vendor in the East China market to compete.

The company took advantage of its geographical advantage in Kunshan, through careful research and market research on subdivided products, to focus its products on “green lubrication of machine tools”. “In order to ensure the high quality requirements of raw materials, the company has maintained The strategic cooperation between Asia's well-known base oil and additive suppliers, all products have passed SGS certification.” said Ye Wenxian, general manager of Kunshan Jiamei Lubricants Co., Ltd.

Ye Wenxian pointed out that the current lube oil market is not one that can completely dominate. Lubricant manufacturers of various brands must make reasonable market arrangements, exert their own advantages and strive to operate, and it is possible to occupy a place in fierce market competition.

Committed to national brand innovation

Dongfeng Lubricating Oil, which is committed to creating a national leader in Lubricating Oil Brands, under the fierce competition of the high-end lubricants market, through careful research and scientific analysis of market conditions, has seized the industry's “28 rules” (ie 80% The company's profits come from 20% of important customers, the remaining 20% ​​of profits come from 80% of ordinary customers), positioning the product in the new area of ​​“energy saving, environmental protection, green, and innovation”. “We have developed Dongfeng DFL, Dongfeng DFT, Dongfeng DFP and a series of products with high-efficiency, energy-saving and green features have been widely recognized in the market, said Chen Qi.

The reporter was informed that in 2010, Dongfeng Lubricator Henan Xuchang 300,000 tons of lube oil production capacity base was completed and put into production, and in 2011 to achieve group operations. This year, with the start-up of Hebei Xingtai and Mudanjiang capacity projects, their total production capacity will reach 1 million tons.

An old company that has been in the lube industry for 20 years, and is currently the leading lubricant company in Liaoning Province - Shenyang Aojina Lubricant Co., Ltd., which is a fully synthetic engine oil product, has recently proposed the use of trenches in the industry for the first time. The technical scheme of oil synthesis of eco-friendly lubricants has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life.

According to the company's Minister of Research and Development, Dong Yan, the above technical solutions will be followed by primary and secondary amplification tests and the expected installation of Augina's three-stage amplification test equipment. The next step will be the design and construction of the corresponding industrial production equipment. Has the most reliable parameter basis. This not only means that Ojina has mastered the process and conditions for the conversion of waste oil into eco-lubricants, but also indicates that the Orgina Oil Project will soon embark on an industrialized production process from the laboratory.

“This project is not only a very successful product positioning transformation and upgrading, but also a very important extension of the national-level Spark program key project 'use of vegetable oil to develop all-purpose or eco-friendly special lubricants for agricultural machinery and industrialization'.” Dr. Wei Guoping, chairman of Aegina Lubricants Group, said.

Joining the United Nations "Global Compact" Jiangsu Longxi Lubricants is a national enterprise that focuses on technological innovation. The reporter was informed that at present, Longxi Lubricants series products have fully passed the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the International Lubricants Standardization and Certification Committee (ILSAC) related product certification. The application for the project of “Nanjing Lubricant Engineering Technology Research Center” was recently officially approved. Longxi was listed as a Nanjing City-level Research and Engineering Center construction project. After the project is completed, it will be the first in Nanjing. At the same time, it is also China's premier professional research center for lubricants.