ICIS holds the 28th edition of the World Base Oils and Lubricants Conference

The Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) recently held its 28th World Base Oils and Lubricants Conference in London, United Kingdom, from February 6 to 8, 2024. The event brought together major lubricants and base oils industry players and seasoned professionals and Lubezine Magazine was one of the media partners.

T he conference featured keynote sessions, where industry professionals like Artis Brown, the Vice President of Base stocks and Waxes from ExxonMobil, Aldo Govi, the CEO of Infineum, and Ravi Chawla, the Managing Director and CEO of Gulf Oil Lubricants India, shared insights into crucial topics regarding the industry. The Women in Base Oils & Lubricants Get-Together also celebrated and empowered women in the industry, highlighting the importance of diversity and inclusivity.

Presentations focused on topics such as base oils, sustainability, electrification, and emerging technologies like immersion cooling for data centers.

The presentation by ICIS on base oils gave insights into Europe’s 2023 base oils market and future projections. Producers are mainly focused on manufacturing for the local market, but due to a decreased demand as a result of the current economic conditions, hand-to-mouth buying is taking place, and spot buying seems to be preferred in the current demand climate.

Apu Gosalia’s session on the European Union (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive provided valuable guidance for navigating sustainability standards, while Artis Brown’s session covered lubricants’ role in a transitioning world. He underscored the changes happening in the industry, such as an increased use of Group II and Group III base oils. He also noted that technological advancements and market-based solutions are some of the critical enablers that will help deliver products capable of meeting the challenges associated with a transitioning world.

As the world moves towards electrification to achieve sustainability and lower the carbon footprint, new challenges arise for transformer oils in electric grids. Dr. Hugo Campelo, Senior Technical Advisor at Nynas AB, discussed how transformer oils have a new set of challenges, such as the need to be scalable because of the increasing number of transformers and new potential segments requiring power. Another challenge is the need for the oils to be recyclable at the end of life, all of which the transformer oils need to solve, since the power grid continues to grow to cater to the rising electricity demand.

From L-R: Amanda Hay, Deputy Managing Editor, Americas, ICIS, Valentina Serra-Holm, VP Engineered Fluids, Perstorp AB, Bhavika Sachdeva, Director, Trinity Lubes & Greases FZC, Alison Jones, Chief Strategy Officer, ICIS. SOURCE | ICIS

Presentations focused on topics such as base oils, sustainability, electrification, and emerging technologies like immersion cooling for data centers.

An emerging technology for cooling data centres is immersion cooling. While its uptake and adoption is still low, Dr. Valentina Serra-Holm of Perstorp highlighted the critical role immersion cooling will play in the future of data centres. She underscored that of all the energy consumption in data centres, up to 40% of that energy is used in cooling. She stressed that using immersion cooling will be more energy-efficient than the current cooling methods, and it will be a better option for data centres looking to be more sustainable.

With over 400 delegates from 45 countries, the conference provided a vibrant networking atmosphere, facilitating idea exchange and partnership building. Commenting on the conference, Clinton Anyiam, the CEO of Afribase Group, said, “The ICIS conference is always the best place to network when it comes to base oils trading.” Echoing those words, Mohammad Elsadek, Director of Lubricants at Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), said, “The ICIS conference is definitely the best place to network here in London.”

The 29th edition of the World Base Oils and Lubricants Conference will be in 2025, and regional events will occur throughout 2024..