Asia Pacific and Latin America will be key drivers for lubricants growth, especially in recycled lubes
According to a new report from Grand View Research, the size of the global lubricants market is expected to reach $68.54bn by 2022, and will be driven by the automotive industry in emerging markets like Asia Pacific and Latin America.
In particular, strong demand for higher-quality industrial lubricants in China, coupled with an increasingly affluent population purchasing cars and motorcycles, is slated to contribute a boost in the region.
The study, which estimates the global lubricants market at 36.36m tons in 2014, predicts demand will rise by almost a third in less than a decade to 43.87m tons in 2022. Asia Pacific already accounted for more than 40% of total market volume last year, largely due to high increased industrial output from China.
Use of recycled lubes products is also fuelling growth but attracting controversy in equal measure, especially in China.
According to data gathered from trade publication Lubes Report Asia, China was on track to collect 3.6m metric tons of used oil this year. Of the estimated 8.5m tons per year used in the market, approximately 2.3m tons of collectable oils were generated in 2013, alongside a further 0.7m tons of water and other chemical pollutants.
Of this amount roughly 724,000 tonnes per year were legally recycled, although vast amounts were also collected by apparently unregulated operators.