Lukoil and Russian Railways (RZhD) open a new plant and Lukoil launches marine innovation.
Smooth running for Russian Railways? Image: Russian Railways |
Earlier this month, Lukoil and OAO Rossiyskiye Zhelezniye Dorogi opened the Intesmo lubricant manufacturing plant in Volgograd.
Located at the site of the LUKOIL-Volgogradneftepererabotka refinery, the plant, with 147 employees, is designed for an annual production of up to 30,000 metric tons of lubricants. According to Lube Report, Russian Railways will purchase around a third of the output which will meet the needs of about 80% of Russia’s major carrier for railway lubricants. The remainder will be used in the country’s automotive and industrial sector.
The 1.3bn Ruble ($34m) plant, funded by Lukoil, is set to replace Russian Railway's outdated Kuzaks facility in Moscow. Evgeny Shkolnikov, deputy of RZhD’s technical resources department told Lube Report: “The transfer of intellectual property and formulations used for decades in Kuzaks gave our company a shareholder right in Intesmo, despite the fact that we didn’t finance the project.”
Meanwhile, Lukoil has announced an industry-first - the launch of a cylinder lubricant mixer for the shipping sector. iCOlube (Intelligent Cylinder Oil Lubrication) avoids the need to carry multiple cylinder oils of varying base number (BN). The mixer allows ship crews to input the fuel's sulphur content into the system, which then provides an ideal mix of fresh or used system oil at the optimum feed rate to maintain appropriate alkalinity for the engine load and fuel sulphur content.