Modernization of lube blending plant

摘要

The unprecedented growth in lube oil industry is arising out due to deregulation of oil prices by the government, abolished quota system and growth in automobile and engineering industries.As a matter of fact, economic liberalization had attracted many international players in Indian market. Presently, lube oil market in India is of the order of around 1.3 million tonnes and is growing more than 5% annually and it is expected that by year 2014-15, demand will grow to more than 2.0 million tonnes. It is claimed that Indian lube market is sixth largest in the world and in near future further unprecedented growth is expected.The lube oil users, both automobile consumers and the purchasers of industrial lubricants becoming more and more demanding with respect to specialized multi-grade products of stringent quality and that too at times intend coming at very short notice. The consumer community does not mind paying higher price for quality products.Therefore, lube oil blending industry is forced to retrospect. Barring new lube oil producers, which were set up by multinational companies in joint venture, most of older units are operated according to traditional methods. Such methods result in higher blending batch time because of occupancy of blenders for non-value-added activities, cross contamination, spillage and too much dependence on plant operators on product quality. The paper briefs some of the latest engineering tools for blending, production concepts with the state of art engineering solutions, which can lead to increase in production capacity, improve quality, limit dependence on operators and minimizing losses.