National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 556. Proceedings of FIELD EXPERIENCES WITH RE-REFINED MOTOR OILS Robert F. Pedal11,2 Motor Oils Refining Co. At the previous oil workshop held at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) on November 22 and 23, 1976, Mr. Hugh Kaufman indicated he felt that only a few people wanted this country to recycle oil continuously [1], and this disturbed him since the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) were meeting on December 15, 1976, to determine how much to raise the price of oil. Today, in my opinion, very little has changed in the overall attitude toward recycling oil, and OPEC is meeting again to consider a price increase, while the current import price tag of oil to the U.S. is $45 billion per year. the In two papers given at the 1976 workshop, the several authors listed the primary barriers to oil recycling as (1) the Reduction Excise Tax, and (2) Federal Trade Commission's labeling requirement (both instituted in 1965) [2,3]. The result of these was an enormous drop in the number of re-refiners' and the total volume of recycled oil output. Recently, I made a telephone survey of 12 re-refiners, selecting those companies with a large portion of their production going into motor oils. The purpose was to obtain more recent information about barriers they face, and to also obtain information about their customers and thereby accumulate evidence that a number of re-refiners have been making high-quality motor oils for many years. From this survey I identified three barriers which these re-refiners feel constitute a severe constraint on their industry: (1) unfair taxation, (2) restrictive labeling requirements, and (3) limited customer acceptance. Seven of the companies contacted do the major part of their business competing with the lower-grade virgin oil products, where price is critical to moving the product. They market through wholesalers and jobbers and generally sell an API SA class product. This segment of the re-refining industry is currently very severely affected by these three barriers. First, in order to increase their product line by using virgin blending oils, they must face tax disadvantages. Second, these same re-refiners are unable to successfully compete in the premiumquality product market because their SE classification oils are subjected to the labeling requirement and must be labeled "made from previously used oil." This labeling requirement helps to bring about the third barrier, customer acceptance, because it gives customers the impression that the re-refined oil is an inferior product, regardless of actual quality. Now that you have heard the reports on the Environmental Protection Agency/ Department of Defense program and the Iowa State fleet test on re-refined engine oils [4,5], I feel that it is time these barriers be reconsidered. Although the labeling requirement may give the impression that these re-refined oils are inferior products, some of these same companies provided oils for inclusion in these evaluation programs, and the results have indicated that these oils are, in fact, quality products. In addition to motor oil production, 3 of the 12 re-refining companies surveyed process railroad lube oils, recompounding their products to original specifications. They have been successful in this business for 25, 7, and 6 years, respectively. One of these companies has served 19 railroad systems, several of them for the entire 25 years. Author was APR/NBS Industrial Research Associate, working full time at NBS for a year beginning June 1977. 2The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author. 3Numbers in brackets are references, to be found at the end of the paper. In order to minimize the customer acceptance problems, most re-refiners have generally operated by dealing directly with larger volume consumers, and they supply oils which are compounded as suggested by representatives of additive companies or as requested by customers. The following is a condensed listing of the information supplied by re-refiners pertaining to customers using their products: Company A has been supplying a 200 vehicle bus line for more than 6 years. It has also supplied oil for municipal vehicles for several years in a city with a population of approximately 700,000. Company B re-refines to produce quality products. For 5 years it has Company C supplies a company with a fleet of more than 3,000 mixed Company D has supplied a large food distributor with oil for more than this re-refined product. They do not have engine problems attributable All of the above companies supply fully formulated oil products to their customers. The products are formulated as required to meet the equipment manufacturers' recommendations or customers' specifications. The survey data presented here give significant evidence of customer acceptance of re-refined oil. Although these companies produce quality products and deal directly with consumers, they remain subject to the FTC labeling requirement. In my opinion, it is due time that these current restrictive labeling requirements be reconsidered, and that the quality of the product to perform the intended function be the overriding consideration in any labeling rule. References [1] Kaufman, H. B., Recent used oil legislation (Proc. Workshop on Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oils, NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, November 22-23, 1976), Book, Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil (NBS SP 488, Aug. 1977). [2] Maltezou, S. P., Factors affecting used oil recovery/ utilization and effects of proposed policy alternatives (Proc., Workshop on Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil, NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, November 22-23, 1976), Book, Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil (NBS Sp 488, Aug. 1977). [3] Cukor, P. M., Marketing barriers for recycled oils (Proc. Workshop on Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil, NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, November 22-23, 1976), Book, Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil (NBS SP 488, Aug. 1977). [4] Bowen, T. C., EPA/DOD investigation of re-refined engine oil (Proc., Conf. on Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil, NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, November 29-30, 1977), Book, NBS SP 556. [5] Ulrichson, D. L., and Yake, D. E., Iowa re-refined oil fleet test (Proc. Conf. on Measurements and Standards for Recycled Oil, NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, November 29-30, 1977), Book, NBS SP 556. National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 556. Proceedings of September 1979) (Issued AN APPROACH TO QUALIFICATION OF RE-REFINED ENGINE OIL Thomas C. Bowen U.S. Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command Fort Belvoir, Virginia 22060 The recent Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 call for revised policies to encourage the procurement of recycled oil for military and nonmilitary Federal uses. This legislation required removing the current restrictions imposed on re-refined materials in military specifications. Therefore, a methodology must be developed which will permit the use of these materials while maintaining the high quality of products supplied to the Federal Government under the military specifications. The following will be a discussion of a possible approach which could be used to meet these objectives. As we will see, this approach is based on the current system of qualifying products and would revise the procedures used to define and control the basestock components employed in qualified products. I will first briefly review current procedures and then compare these with the proposed system. Prior to qualification, military specifications place only general requirements on the materials to be used in formulating the lubricant and the properties to be exhibited by the finished product. As shown in table 1, base stocks are to consist of a petroleum, synthetic, or combination petroleum-synthetic material; are to be treated with functional additives such as detergents, dispersants, oxidation inhibitors, etc. and no re-refined materials may be used. In respect to properties, limiting values are established for viscosity; viscosity index; and flash, pour, and stable pour points. At the same time, very stringent requirements are placed on the performance characteristics of the finished product. Requirements are established for stability and compatibility; foaming characteristics; and, of course, the performance characteristics defined by the engine dynamometer tests. After qualification, the latitude allowed in formulating the lubricant is removed. The manufacturer is restricted to the same basestocks and additives as those used for the qualification sample. In addition, manufacturing tolerances specific to the finished product are established. These tolerances (table 2) are more restrictive than the general requirements set prior to qualification and include limits for both physical and chemical properties of the lubricant. |