As the world reflects on the impact of 9/11 a decade on, it is quite instructive to consider how things have changed around the world and in particular, for the lubricants market.
Economically, China’s GDP has grown six-fold to $6bn, whereas the US has less than doubled to $14.3bn.
In the virtual world, internet usage has grown 5.8 times, while traffic has grown 200 times since 9/11. In 2001, Google had hardly started and now it has a capitalisation of $200bn. In 2001, Apple had yet to launch the iPod and its capitalisation, then $6.8bn, has now grown 55 times to $380bn, briefly eclipsing ExxonMobil as the world largest company.
In lubricants, there have been major mergers and purchases including Exxon, Mobil, BP, Castrol, Chevron and Texaco, to mention but a few.
The impact of the Kyoto agreement was not yet being felt in 2001. The industry was operating on High Sulphur fuel for Diesel with emissions at around 330ppm. Today it is 10-15ppm in leading markets; all of which makes increasing demands of lubricants where standards and specifications have moved from API CH4 to CJ4 or from Euro 4 to Euro 6. Even in China we have seen the implementation of CN 4 as the new Chinese standard, equivalent to Euro 4.
The last decade has seen a transformation in the marketing of lubricants. B2C and B2B internet sites are now ubiquitous, adding new features for mobile services and cost saving devices for delivering information, such as TDS, with ever-increasing efficiency.
By 2021, we can expect the CARS 21 initiative to be impacting on both the European and other markets.
In a decade we have already come a long way and the world really is a changed place in many ways. Long may positive change continue. Throughout the decade, OATS has also changed. We have increased our model count six-fold and increased our global coverage, adding US and most recently, Chinese models. With new Apps and web solutions emerging, we will continue to evolve and develop in an ever-changing world of lubricants data.
If you’d like to find out more about OATS’s latest database developments or offer comments and contributions to the OATS Bulletin, please contact us at bulletin@oats.co.uk
Sebastian Crawshaw
Chairman