R&D Gives Wings to Take-Off - China Petroleum Daily Interviews Liao Guoqin, General Manager of PetroChina Lubricant Company

Technical advantages of the project
Several technical indicators of the three types of gear oil packages invented by the project have reached internationally leading levels. The manual transmission oil blended with RHY4162 reaches the latest API MT-1 standard, with 3 main indicators exceeding similar foreign products, and has obtained a US patent. The RHY4208 package has a low treat rate, and the rear axle gear oil blended with it reaches the latest international API GL-5 standard, with 2 main indicators exceeding foreign products. The RHY4022 package has a wide range of applications, and the industrial gear oil blended with it reaches the latest international USS224 and USS224 specifications, with 1 main indicator exceeding foreign products.
The project technology is original compared with similar foreign technologies. First, foreign companies mostly adopt the non-inert film principle of gear lubrication, while this invention adopts the inert film principle of gear lubrication. Second, this invention established the concept of the sulfur-to-phosphorus ratio, which is an innovation compared with foreign approaches.
Compared with internationally renowned lubricant products, the product's technical advantages are obvious. First, the treat rate is low, giving a cost advantage. Second, all products reach the latest standards issued by the American Petroleum Institute and, compared with internationally renowned lubricant products, offer more outstanding extreme pressure performance, load resistance and anti-wear durability, making them better suited to the Chinese market.
Ten years ago, when PetroChina Lubricant Company was being formed, whether to bring the Lanzhou Lubricant R&D Center and the Dalian Lubricant R&D Center wholly into the Lubricant Company was once a painful decision. Each of these two R&D centers required an annual investment of 100 million yuan, while the Lubricant Company's projected revenue at the time was no more than 2 billion yuan. Yet Kunlun Lubricant's decision-makers were certain that to remain invincible in the lubricant market and not be controlled by others, they must have their own intellectual property rights and blending technology. Based on this understanding, and with the support of the Party group of the group company, the Lubricant Company took these two units with decades of R&D history under its wing.
At that time, since external cooperation had only recently begun, leading foreign technologies poured in. Only then did Chinese people discover that our lubricant technology lagged by at least 20 years. While other lubricant R&D units in the industry were being dissolved one after another, these two R&D units retained by PetroChina began a long and arduous research journey.
Ten years later, perseverance and support finally paid off. PetroChina Lubricant Company broke the foreign technology monopoly and now possesses an environmentally friendly series of engine oils based on its original salicylate technology. It created the technology Preparation Technology and Industrial Application of Extreme Pressure Anti-Wear Additives and Packages for Gear Oils, centered on original extreme pressure anti-wear additives containing sulfur and phosphorus compounds, which won a 2009 second prize of the National Technology Invention Award, placing PetroChina Kunlun Lubricant at the high end of the market and among the world's advanced lubricant players with independent intellectual property rights and proprietary technology.
As PetroChina Lubricant Company entered its tenth year of development, on March 1, 2010, amid swirling auspicious snow, the reporter walked into Kunlun Tower in Taiyanggong, Beijing, and interviewed Liao Guoqin, General Manager of PetroChina Lubricant Company.
Reporter: The past year was a key year connecting past and future for the development of the Kunlun brand. Against the backdrop of the international financial crisis, the company took strengthening the foundation and optimizing for improvement as the tone for the whole year's work and, driven by scientific and technological research and development, achieved fairly good results.
Liao Guoqin: In this past year, it should be said that through our efforts scientific research began to bear fruit. We won the only National Science and Technology Progress Award in China's lubricant industry to date. Our unique formulation system with independent intellectual property rights successfully passed bench tests for the highest current international quality grade of engine oil and was commercialized, and our sales of high-end passenger car oil also achieved a breakthrough.
With formulation technology at the international frontier, we achieved comprehensive cooperation with SAIC Group's main vehicle series, including GM, Volkswagen and Roewe. Our grease production and sales made a leap, jumping from a thousand-ton scale to more than 20,000 tons per year. In the face of the international financial crisis, Kunlun Lubricant still achieved continued growth in packaged oil sales and continuous improvement in product mix.
Reporter: Kunlun Lubricant has realized the transformation from made in China to created in China. High-quality Kunlun series lubricants not only cover the national market but are also sold to the Antarctic, having withstood the test of extreme weather. Can we say that our proprietary technology has entered the world's advanced level?
Liao Guoqin: We have achieved a leap in key technologies. In this past year, the Kunlun brand's various measurement indicators continued to rank among the best among national lubricant brands, maintaining its position as the number one domestic lubricant brand. Kunlun Lubricant comes from PetroChina is known to every household and deeply rooted in people's hearts. As the whole group company's awareness of brand operation deepens, the gem flower has bloomed across the country and is going global along with the group company's pace in building a comprehensive international energy company.
Reporter: Without R&D there would be no leap in Kunlun Lubricant's quality today. How has the headquarters of PetroChina Lubricant Company supported R&D?
Liao Guoqin: Treating R&D with a strategic perspective is the unswerving goal of the Lubricant Company. Under all circumstances, we keep increasing our investment in scientific research to guarantee R&D needs, and we heavily reward researchers once phased results are achieved. Since the R&D centers were founded, the company has invested at least 100 million yuan in research funds each year, and by 2009 the cumulative total had exceeded 900 million yuan, ensuring key research programs financially. We also allocate more than 2 million yuan each year as scientific research achievement awards according to performance. These measures have guaranteed the implementation of basic lubricant R&D. At the same time, with the strong support of the group company, a state key laboratory has been located at the Lubricant Company since 2008, giving wings to lubricant additive research and development.
Reporter: In 2010 Kunlun Lubricant will celebrate its tenth birthday and will also be at the starting point of a new stage. How will the Lubricant Company gradually lead the market, starting from R&D?
Liao Guoqin: Starting now, we must work to let the advantages of brand and core technology replace resource advantages and become Kunlun Lubricant's greatest strength. We will complete as soon as possible the goal of pushing Kunlun packaged oil onto a million-ton platform. At the same time, we will strive to achieve leapfrog development in high-end passenger car oil and refined industrial oils and to further improve the product mix.
Low-carbon development is now a global trend. I have always believed that, given that China's vehicle conditions, road conditions, equipment levels and fuel conditions cannot quickly achieve qualitative improvement, relying on rational lubrication and choosing energy-saving and environmentally friendly lubricant technologies and products is the fastest and most effective way to achieve energy saving and emission reduction. Raising the overall level of domestic lubricant management and promoting energy-saving and environmentally friendly lubricant technologies and products is one of Kunlun's important missions as the lubricant brand of a national oil company.
Through years of effort, the company has accumulated a great deal of technical reserve. For example, our salicylate formulation system with independent intellectual property rights is a low-sulfur, high-detergency, energy-saving and environmentally friendly formulation system that can reduce fuel consumption and achieve low emissions.
We are confident that, under the leadership of the group company and through the unremitting efforts of all employees, Kunlun Lubricant will in the near future keep pace with, and even surpass, internationally renowned brands.