Russian passenger cars and light commercial vehicles consumed 280 million liters of motor oils in 2016, up 4.3 percent from 2015, and the growth of its active vehicle fleet should spur a recovery for its lubricants market, according to a recently published report.
Replenishment of the active passenger car and light commercial vehicle park in Russia is expected at an annual growth rate of 2.3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, by 2019, said Victor Pushkarev, head of projects at Autostat. Also, we found that last year almost 90 percent of the total active foreign-branded passenger cars in Russia used semi-synthetic and synthetic motor oils, while only 50 percent of the total active Russian-made cars used semi-synthetic and synthetic products.
In 2016 there were 41.5 million registered passenger cars in Russia. Of these, 94 percent were powered with gasoline engines and just 6 percent were running on diesel engines. In the light commercial vehicle segment, 4 million vehicles in total were registered in the country last year. Seventy- one percent of them were vehicles powered with gasoline engines, while 29 percent were vehicles powered with diesel engines, Pushkarev said.
The study found that in 2016 Russian lubricant makers exported around 192 million liters of motor oils, up 25 percent from 2015. Gazprom Neft and Lukoil, the countrys largest lube marketers, exported the largest volumes of lubricants last year. Each company accounted for 35 percent – 67 million liters each – of total automotive lubricant export volumes out of Russia.
In 2016 Russia imported around 110 million liters of motor oils, and five lube makers accounted for more than 70 million liters, or 64 percent of the total: BP, Total Lubricants, ExxonMobil, SK-Lubricants and LiquiMoly. Pushkarev added that import volumes rose 2.5 percent.
In the business-to-consumer segment, the report offers a breakdown of the motor oils offered in retail stores in the six largest cities across Russia during January and February 2016. In these cities, lube makers and distributors displayed for sale a total of 80 different motor oil brands, 20 of which were original equipment manufacturer branded products, Pushkarev said. He added that in the points of sale, the most prominent brands were Castrol, Mobil, LiquiMoly, Shell and Lukoil.
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The report concluded that Total offered the most types of lubricant products in the country in 2016 – 102 – while BP, ExxonMobil and Shell offered 58, 51, and 37, respectively.
Autostat is a Mosow-based analytical agency that covers the Russian and CIS automotive markets.
The Russian version of the report is available for purchase at Autostats website: https://www.autostat.ru/research/product/241/