LUBRICANTS: HOW IT AFFECTS US

Have you ever stopped to think what life for many would be like without lubricant? Or who would have imagined that this petroleum product would come to be of such significance in today’s world? Or to what extend do we depend on lubricant?

Now let us take a brief account of where lubricant comes from, and how it is produced before it is then finally converted into a myriad of useful products. From crude oil refining lubricating oil is obtained among other distillation process by-products.

But lubricating oil, in this form, is not yet a ‘lubricant’ until it has been blended (treated) with additive package in order to become a genuine or fortified product (lubricant).

And of course, there are over 500 formulations and depending on the formulation a lubricant maybe branded as engine (motor) oil, gear oil, hydraulic oil or penetrating oil just to mention but a few, so as to meet specific applications and functions in either automobile, aviation, marine, industrial or agricultural machineries as the case may be.

By the way, a lubricant’s primary function in a car/machine is to lessen friction thus slowing the breakdown while enhancing its performance. But that is not all! Lubricant also acts as an efficient coolant and keeps the internal engine parts clean too.

It will be no exaggeration therefore to say that the modern world turns on lubricant. One has only to imagine what would happen if supplies of lubricant were to suddenly come to a HALT!

We need lubricant to run our vehicles, ships, aircrafts and railway trains. Lubricant is also used for many other purposes, including at home for personal hygiene (e.g. K-Y Jelly often used as a sexual lubricant) and at the hospitals where lubricant is used for bio-medical applications (e.g. lubricants for artificial joints). In addition, it is used to keep moving metal parts working together efficiently in our agricultural and industrial machineries.

Everyday millions of people use a number of assorted lubrication products that have helped to shape modern life. Little wonders that lubricant have a greater variety of uses than perhaps any other known substance in the world today!

The discovery of lubricant, no doubt has created wealth and transformed the economies of nations and the lives of individuals such that new job opportunities are now available to areas of high unemployment.
The lubricant industry in our economy is not without its own challenges. The issue of base oil being sold straight to motorists on the street, as a finished product is pathetic! There is also the issue of constant arbitrary price increase of other petroleum products such as fuel (petrol) for example, has continued to threaten the very demand and supply of lubricant products in Nigeria. Another contentious issue is the international politics on crude oil, and also domestic taxes levied on production and sale of crude oil (which enables government finance its expenditure plans) have generally affected the sales and acceptability of the ‘state-of-the-art lubricants’ e.g. synthetic oils. Lubricant is no doubt a key issue in Nigeria today!

Therefore, life without lubricant would be very different for many, yet very little of this pertinent aspect of petroleum product is known to the general public.

The advocacy for lubrication education for the lube-consuming public and the war against substandard lube products in our local lube market should be a continuous and joint effort between major/independent downstream oil marketing companies, regulating bodies, government and media organizations.

Apart from the business of manufacturing and marketing of lubricant, the industry still has many untapped areas of investment such as recycling of used oils and other environmental issue. Thanks for Research and Development (R&D) in the discovery of new technological ground in the field of lubrication and lubricants.

The future of lubricant is well under way!