Brazil’s output of virgin mineral base oils jumped 24% in December, compared to the same month of 2023, rounding out the country’s most productive year since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Base oil imports to the country dropped sharply in December, year to year, but for the whole 12 months imports also ran ahead of 2023.
Brazil is by far the largest finished lubricant market in South America and second-biggest in the Western Hemisphere to the United States. The country’s oil refineries churned out 48,228 metric tons of mineral base oils last month, according to the National Agency on Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, not counting output of rerefined base oils. That was up from 38,750 tons in December of 2023.
Domestic production for all of 2024 reached 581,322 tons. That was 13% higher than the previous year and 6% higher than the next most productive year since 2019, the earliest year currently posted on ANP’s website. In 2019, production was 607,770 tons.
Brazil typically imports base oils on roughly the same scale of domestic production. December was a down month at 30,101 tons, which was 65% lower than the same month of 2023. For all of 2024, base oil imports totaled 880,961 tons, 5% more than the 835,889 tons imported in 2023.
Most of the base oils imported to Brazil come from the United States and are API Group II oils, though imports of Group III have been rising.
Brazil exports far smaller amounts of base oil. In December it exported 8,745 tons, up from 6,295 tons in the same month of 2023.