Kunlun Lubricants: Gathering Strength and Forging Ahead

– The China Lubrication Technology Forum (2017) Concludes Successfully
The flowers never age in all four seasons, and the spring moon over the river belongs to Kunming. On September 13-14, 2017, Lubricants magazine of PetroChina's lubricant company successfully held the China Lubrication Technology Forum (2017) in the spring city of Kunming. As a weather vane for the technological development of China's lubricant industry, this forum, themed "Opportunities and Challenges of Long Oil Drain Intervals", attracted more than 300 delegates from relevant national ministries and commissions, related industry societies, domestic and international lubricant companies, automakers, equipment manufacturers, and well-known universities and research institutes at home and abroad. Over the two-day meeting, delegates discussed lubrication technology trends, tapped cooperation value, jointly sought sustainable development and served "Made in China", keeping closely to the forum theme. Xiao Hongwei, General Manager and Party Committee Secretary of PetroChina's lubricant company, attended the forum and gave a speech.
Leading the industry's development
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese economy has entered a new normal and is transforming from "Made in China" to "Created in China". This is not only an urgent need for China's economic development to adjust its structure, change its mode and switch its driving forces, but also the fundamental path from being a country of labour to a country of craftsmen.
As a leading state-owned enterprise, Kunlun Lubricants has, since its founding in 2000, consistently and firmly fulfilled its mission of raising the level of lubrication in China. Xiao Hongwei said: "This year we put forward the three positioning pillars of 'R&D, service and brand' and the '3369' development blueprint for the next 5 to 10 years, seeking to build a lubricant brand of 'military-grade quality, key equipment of a great power'."
From being the designated oil for the military parade marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China to emerging industrial fields represented by high-speed rail and robots, Kunlun Lubricants, as the national team of China's lubricant industry, has consistently adhered to a development path of independent formulation and innovation-driven growth. It not only successfully developed gearbox lubricant for high-speed rail EMUs, applied on the "Blue Dolphin" EMU with a purely Chinese pedigree to help fuel China's high-speed rail, but also cracked the independent core technology of robot grease, breaking the technical barriers set up by foreign-funded enterprises and taking a solid step on the road to localizing robot lubricating grease.
In addition, projects completed by Kunlun Lubricants – "Extreme Pressure Anti-Wear Additives for Gear Oils, Additive Package Preparation Technology and Industrial Application", "Research, Development and Application of Technology for Producing High-End Products from Naphthenic Heavy Oil" and "Development of High-Grade Internal Combustion Engine Oils and Their Additives" – successively won the second-class National Technology Invention Award and the first- and second-class National Science and Technology Progress Awards, filling a gap for the Chinese lubricant sector in national invention awards, driving the development of domestic lubricant enterprises and making a due contribution to raising the level of lubrication in China.
Serving "Made in China"
"Made in China 2025" states that Chinese manufacturing should develop toward high-end, intelligent, green and service-oriented production. As an industry that serves equipment, the lubricant industry must not only pursue high-end development in the value chain but also focus on customers' real and potential needs – a view unanimously endorsed by delegates to the China Lubrication Technology Forum (2017).
Through many years of deep cultivation of the market, Kunlun Lubricants has consistently relied on quality resources, advantageous technology and excellent management, continuously exploring and innovating to achieve ever greater technical refinement and ensuring the supply of high-quality products to enterprises and consumers. It now has more than 700 grades of lubricant (grease and additive) products across 17 major categories, widely used in many industries including aviation, steel, automobiles, chemicals, railways and equipment manufacturing.
Now, Kunlun Lubricants also actively supports the establishment of the China Diesel Engine Oil Standard Innovation Alliance and was the first to launch long-life lubricants for commercial vehicles covering 100,000 to 120,000 kilometres. In addition, the research and development of high-performance lubricants by PetroChina, undertaken jointly with eight enterprises and institutes including PetroChina Company Limited and the Petrochemical Research Institute, has obtained national project approval, becoming the only nationally supported R&D project in the lubricant field during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. It will tackle key production technologies for high-quality base oils, establish lubricant standards and testing methods and develop high-end lubricant products, comprehensively raising the level of China's lubricant production technology.
Joining hands to create the future
"A single flower does not make spring; a hundred flowers blooming together bring spring to the whole garden." In order to realize the two strategic plans of "Made in China 2025" and Industry 4.0 as early as possible and comprehensively improve the development quality and level of China's lubricant industry, Kunlun Lubricants is consistently committed to building the China Lubrication Technology Forum into an exchange platform of "extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits".
Thirty years of wind and rain, thirty years of persistence: the China Lubrication Technology Forum has witnessed the development of China's lubricant industry from simply developing oils that meet specifications to all-round customized development for customers and equipment, and in technical specifications from simulation and imitation to independent establishment. It also could not have succeeded without the guidance and support of well-known domestic and international enterprises such as Infineum, Evonik Industries, Ruifeng New Materials, Tianhe Chemical Group, Lubrizol, Afton, Chevron Oronite, Lanxess, Vanderbilt, the SI Group, Solutia Belgium and BASF, and of experts from FAW, Dongfeng, SAIC, JAC, the Chinese Society for Internal Combustion Engines and the Society of Automotive Engineers of China.
Do not forget the original aspiration and continue to advance. 2017 is an important year for implementing the 13th Five-Year Plan. Whether China's lubricant industry can secure a place on the international lubricant stage requires the entire lubricant and additive industry to work with one heart and compete and cooperate in a regulated way, requires customer industries to put forward their real needs and opportunities for application, and requires institutions of higher learning and research institutes to contribute new ideas and creativity. Xiao Hongwei said: "Kunlun Lubricants will, as always, persist in running the forum on a non-commercial basis and at a high technical level, carefully nurturing the interactive exchange platform for lubrication and related industries, and achieving mutual benefit, win-win results and joint development."