New lubricant expertise to transform industry’s standards

September 16, 2019 2:14 pm

Developed with Mobil’s cutting-edge technologies available around the globe, the Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series reflects the lubricant major’s top priority towards India as a high growth region.

Shankar Karnik, General Manager, Industrial Lubricants, ExxonMobil India in an exclusive interview, talks about the new product offering and shares the company’s plans for India.

The Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series has been launched first in India. Is it a strategic decision on part of ExxonMobi lTM?
India is among the fastest growing economies in the world, with phenomenal potential for economic and industrial growth. The country is turning out to be one of the major manufacturing hubs. Building on its Make in India and Skill India initiatives, the new government has announced an investment of. 100-lakh crores in the core sectors, of which. 30-lakh crores has been earmarked for infrastructure alone. This is a fantastic opportunity and this is the market to be. ExxonMobil sees significant potential for growth in India and we want to be the early birds in bringing the best technology to the industries here, with products, distribution and application to tap the huge potential. India is the third largest lubricant market in the world and within lubricants; 40 per cent of it is hydraulic oils. So, it’s only befitting that we introduce our finest new hydraulic oil product in India first, before we take it to the rest of the world.

Speaking about Make in India, is the Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series manufactured in India?
Yes, this product comes from our blending facility, near Mumbai, with R&D and technology inputs from our laboratories and units around the world. Even as we are helping our customers to make world-class products that compete with the best on the global scale, we are setting an example by making Mobil DTE 20 Ultra series in India a best-in-class lubricant with global benchmarking. The new series of hydraulic oils is designed for all industries with hydraulic oil applications – manufacturing and injection moulding, wind turbines in energy, mining, construction, steel, cement, paper, petrochemicals and even some marine applications.

With this launch, we have a solid portfolio for the Indian market – right from low-cost lubricants to premium synthetic oils, covering the entire spectrum of the market, with layered offerings to address varying customer needs. We are now perfectly poised for a massive pan-India expansion for a larger share of the Indian market with our expanding portfolio. Towards this, we are appointing distributors across the country and setting up regional warehouses.

Can you tell us what makes Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series a game-changer in the lubricant market?
The DTE 20 Ultra Series, with ExxonMobil’s new breakthrough hydraulic oil technology, offers an additional edge over anything that is available in the market. The new series’ advanced formulation reduces hydraulic oil consumption significantly, and delivers 72 per cent better wear protection for extending the component life and 89 per cent better deposit control for maintaining precision operations. It is compatible with all types of hydraulic systems and components such as close clearance servo-valves and high accuracy numerically controlled (NC) machine tools. Extensive testing has shown that it comes with better water handling and filter rating. According to Eaton 35VQ25 Test – an industrial test recognised for hydraulic-fluid qualification, the oil provides >72 per cent better wear protection. The Mobil DTE20 Ultra Series significantly lowers the maintenance frequency thus minimising man-machine interaction, which makes the site safer for industrial workers.

Designed to deliver up to 2x longer oil life and exceptional performance in strident conditions, the new series will not only help industries achieve unprecedented performance goals, but also support environmental care by reduction in hydraulic oil consumption.

Technology and innovation have been a strong point with ExxonMobil when it comes to meeting the customer’s needs. In this context, how does Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series address the challenges that manufacturers face?
DTE 20 Ultra Series caters to any application across the manufacturing spectrum – whether it is hydraulic press or any hydraulic requirement in the system. While the life of a lubricant can vary depending on the severity of an application, today if Mobil DTE 20 series oil runs for five years in a plastic injection moulding machine, Mobil DTE 20 Ultra has the potential to go beyond 10 years. And it’s not just about life span. What is important to understand is, that when we talk about double the life, we are also talking about keeping the equipment clean, producing less deposits, creating less wear of materials like pump elements in the system, generating less varnish on servo valves – thereby improving pressure discharge and delivery significantly. The oil retains its hydraulic efficiency which ensures that the machinery performs efficiently. Eventually, this translates into better productivity per hour per day, and extended over the 10-year lifespan of the oil, it adds up to a huge saving. Oil that costs less than one per cent of the machine cost, can deliver an ROI – that is the impact that a technologically superior product like Mobil DTE 20 Ultra delivers to our customers.

How suitable is Mobil DTE 20 Ultra Series for the construction and mining sector?
The DTE 20 Ultra Series is perfectly suited for severe applications in mining and mobile equipments. Whether it is material handling machines like cranes or earth-moving machines like excavators, or even piling rigs at metro sites. In these situations, the pressures are high because of shock loads and the temperatures are high because of exposure, which demands very high filterability. The filterability of the new oil series is unmatched, in terms of its ability to manage shock loads and wear. For each of these performance parameters, Mobil DTE 20 Ultra exceeds expectations, going way beyond the product data sheets, delivering much more than our 2X commitment.

Another pertinent point is moisture, which is one of the biggest enemies of hydraulic functions. Mobil DTE 20 Ultra has excellent demulsibility properties. It has secured the tough GB-rating in China, which is a big endorsement for Indian companies that have Chinese machines.

Oil that costs less than one per cent of the machine cost, can deliver an ROI – that is the impact that a technologically superior product like Mobil DTE 20 Ultra delivers to our customers.
Shankar Karnik, General Manager, Industrial Lubricants, ExxonMobil India