'Kunlunization' Blazes a Win-Win Path

'Jilin Petrochemical's lubricating oil use has basically achieved Kunlunization.' Since 2013 Jilin Petrochemical has been comprehensively promoting the localization of lubricating oil within the company, and many years on, with its outstanding product quality and value-added technical service, Kunlun Lubricant has become the 'favourite' at Jilin Petrochemical, with an internal usage rate of more than 90 percent, while also greatly reducing its lubricant procurement costs; while helping Jilin Petrochemical reduce costs and increase efficiency, the Northeast Sales Company has also left a vivid mark in its process of deeply developing the internal market with steady sales.
Breaking the Myth That Imported Oil Is Irreplaceable
Jilin Petrochemical, an old petrochemical enterprise with nearly 60 years of development, has long relied on imported lubricating oil to play the 'leading role' in ensuring the efficient operation of various large units. When the idea of replacing it with domestic lubricating oil was raised, the technical staff suddenly lost their confidence.
The No. 1 Acrylonitrile Workshop was the earliest workshop to attempt replacement with domestic lubricating oil. The person in charge explained that at the time the workshop's refrigeration compressors had always used York C3302 lubricating oil produced by Frick2A/YORK, an oil specified for factory fill that the contract stated had to be used with imported equipment; it was of good quality but very expensive. In 2013 the Northeast Sales Company took the initiative to visit and investigate the oil needs of this unit, and through technical analysis and blending it filled this equipment with Kunlun DRE68W refrigeration oil on June 10, 2014, which has run smoothly for two years to this day. The successful replacement of the oil for this group of equipment gave Jilin Petrochemical a new understanding of domestic lubricating oil and quietly gave it confidence in the Lubricant Company's products and technical service.
Subsequently the Lubricant Company struck while the iron was hot and quickly sent its strongest technical team to Jilin Petrochemical, where it sampled and analysed all the imported oils in use, compared them with the performance of existing Kunlun products and issued a technical advisory report for each, scientifically guiding Jilin Petrochemical in carrying out oil replacement. As a result Jilin Petrochemical became even firmer in its determination to replace similar foreign products with Kunlun lubricant.
The five Japanese compressors in the ethylene workshop of the ethylene plant are the core units of Jilin Petrochemical, and Jilin Petrochemical decided that its core equipment should also drink 'good domestic oil'. For the oil used by these units, the Northeast Sales Company quickly worked with R&D staff to analyse oil indicators, carry out blending comparisons and, together with application cases in the same industry, recommended Kunlun KTL32 long-life turbine oil as the factory-fill oil. In May 2015 work began on replacing the lubricant for these five compressors. To ensure the replacement succeeded, for more than a month the staff worked the same hours as the workshop staff, keeping abreast of how the equipment was running after the oil change and dealing with problems promptly. Fourteen months on, the equipment is still running smoothly and normally, and all indicators such as level values meet the standard. During this period of smooth operation the Lubricant Company increased the frequency of oil testing to provide real-time monitoring service for later use, effectively ensuring that oil quality fully meets the equipment's lubrication needs. In addition, the Northeast Sales Company also took the initiative of drawing up an emergency plan, replenishing KTL32 long-life turbine oil at warehouses around Jilin Petrochemical to ensure that lubricating oil supply would not be interrupted in an emergency and that the equipment would run normally for three years.
On the use of Kunlun lubricant as a replacement, Han Yan, a section chief in Jilin Petrochemical's commercial management office, said with deep feeling that in just three years Kunlun Lubricant had used its strength to break Jilin Petrochemical's 'superstition' about similar foreign products, and that its outstanding oil quality and thoughtful and meticulous technical service were the key advantages that foreign products could not match.
Calculating the Benefits for Customers First
Ensuring stable operation of equipment without affecting normal production, while also controlling costs, reducing expenses, improving quality and increasing efficiency: these were the major considerations Jilin Petrochemical kept weighing up in advancing the localization of lubricating oil.
Wang Mingtao, a section chief in Jilin Petrochemical's mechanical and electrical equipment office, worked out the figures: compared with other imported lubricating oils, Kunlun lubricant has an obvious price advantage, averaging 110 percent lower than imported brand lubricants.
While Jilin Petrochemical was making many comparisons on its own, the Northeast Sales Company sorted out and adjusted the types of oil used for all of Jilin Petrochemical's equipment needs and drew up a tailor-made oil use plan for it. Following this 'good prescription', at the end of 2013 Jilin Petrochemical began preparations for replacement, and in 2014 it replaced the lubricant for 332 imported items of equipment, with the first oil change reaching 15 tons and saving 156,300 yuan in costs at once.
Practice has proved that Kunlun lubricant has stable product quality and strong oil versatility. In the replacement work, through sorting out and planning the types of oil used and carrying out brand standardization and rectification, in 2015 the localization replacement of 47 specifications of imported lubricating oil for 1,077 items of equipment was successfully carried out, merging and reducing 18 oil varieties, saving an average of 5,747 yuan in cost per ton; although total procurement increased by 47 tons, the procurement amount fell by nearly 2.3 million yuan year on year. During Jilin Petrochemical's once-every-three-years major overhaul, one oil change of 43,700 liters saved 800,000 yuan in costs. In the first half of this year lubricant replacement was carried out for a further 486 items of equipment and 12 specifications, which on annual usage can directly save 420,000 yuan in procurement costs.
'More oil used, less money spent.' In the past two years Kunlun lubricant usage has kept increasing, and the benefits saved have given Jilin Petrochemical a growing taste of the sweetness of replacement.
Wang Mingtao said that in the past, using imported lubricating oil for equipment meant long procurement cycles and the need for dedicated space to store the oil, whereas now that Kunlun lubricant has been adopted, not only has zero-inventory operation been achieved but the company has also saved substantial costs, making it a key decision for controlling costs and reducing expenses. This assessment is not only the best summary of Jilin Petrochemical's own pursuit of development through cost reduction and efficiency improvement but also the highest praise for the Northeast Sales Company's initiative in proactively reaching out to serve customers and winning the market with oil products suited to demand.
What Customers Remember Is Not Just the Product
In the localization of lubricating oil, what Jilin Petrochemical remembers is not only the outstanding quality of Kunlun lubricant, but also the Kunlun 'master craftsmen' who actively pushed the oil replacement forward.
Since the oil replacement began, technicians from the Lubricant Company have regularly been stationed at Jilin Petrochemical, organizing the heads of the mechanical and electrical departments of its second-level units for on-site lectures and technical exchanges; staying at Jilin Petrochemical for one or two months at a time is common. They often go deep into the production front line, sampling and analysing every plant, every workshop and even every item of equipment one by one, producing replacement plans, registering the confirmed substitute varieties and finally compiling the 'Kunlun Brand Lubricating Oil Replacement Catalogue'.
Bai Jinzhe is the salesperson responsible for oil service at Jilin Petrochemical and can reel off equipment models and oil performance as if counting his family treasures. Jilin Petrochemical's production plants are relatively scattered, the farthest 30 kilometers apart, and Bai Jinzhe has left his mark in the more than 200 workshops of these plants. Besides coordinating oil quantities with Jilin Petrochemical's procurement department staff at the beginning of each month, he is also responsible for submitting contracts, coordinating shipments from the various lubricant production plants and, after the goods arrive, assisting with warehousing, delivery, acceptance and settlement. In August 2015, in order to learn the technical parameters of the Atlas compressors in the air separation workshop of the fertilizer plant, Bai Jinzhe and Wu Lei, a technician from the Dalian R&D Center, worked on site for an hour and a half; the excessive noise in the workshop caused temporary deafness, and their hearing only returned to normal half a day later, but they still insisted on completing the collection of technical parameters accurately.
The replacement process was not always smooth. Earlier this year the other two York refrigeration compressors in the No. 1 Acrylonitrile Workshop also successfully had their refrigeration oil replaced, though the process involved three shutdowns and several direct confrontations with York's equipment personnel. Li Yanqiu and others from the Karamay R&D staff travelled frequently between Xinjiang and Jilin, closely tracking the equipment, seizing the best moment for replacement and defusing the crisis, and ultimately succeeded in promoting the replacement at Jilin Petrochemical of the refrigeration oil of York, Shell and Esso with DRE68W, allowing Kunlun lubricant to gain a firm foothold at Jilin Petrochemical.