Brazilian imports of base oils
Brazilian imports of base oils – In 2023, Brazil imported a volume of base oils of 775,084 m3, being the second largest in its history, second only to the year 2021, which suffered the impact of the recovery from the pandemic period. The total disbursement was US$851.17 million, with the United States leading the supply, being responsible for sending 72.4% of the total imports.
Imports of base oils represented 45.9% of the total Brazilian market, with October being the highlight, representing almost double the annual average. This was directly related to the simultaneous maintenance stoppages at the two basic refineries, Reduc and Mataripe.
The total market was 1,688,489 m3, with national production in refineries representing 30.4% and the re-refining industry providing 23.7% of this volume to supply the market.
Brazilian production
Of the volume placed on the market by Brazilian refineries, the Reduc refinery, in Rio de Janeiro, represented 82.3%, Lubnor, in Ceará, 11.0%, and Refmat (Mataripe), in Bahia, 6.7%. Remembering that Lubnor only produces naphthenic basics and the other two only produce group I basics.
Among re-refiners, Lwart continues to lead the market with a 44.9% share, followed by Lubrasil (11.6%), Proluminas (10.2%), Petrolub (9.6%), Fênix (6.7%) , Tasa (4.1%), Falub (4.0%) and Nortlub (3.8%). Soon after, come Vital (Ind. Petroquímica do Sul), Brazão, Eternal, Supply and Perfilub. It is worth remembering that some of these companies directly consume their base oils for their own production of finished oils.
Ranking of supplier countries
Regarding imports, the ranking of the 10 largest supplier countries to Brazil is in the following order by volume supplied: United States (, South Korea, Malaysia, India, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore, Taiwan, Algeria, and Spain. Others, such as Finland, Sweden, and 13 other countries continue with smaller quantities.
Finished oils market
We will soon also show the final figures for the finished lubricants market, in greater detail, in the next issue of Lubes em Foco magazine. Initially, we have an estimated growth of around 4.3%, with a volume close to 1.46 million cubic meters, however, due to an important gap in volume not reported to the ANP and, consequently, to the market, we have not yet we have an accuracy rate that allows us to publish it. Lubes em Foco is working to bring these consolidated numbers to the market as soon as possible.
