Lubricant Marketers are Placed on Allocation for Shell Synthetic Lubricants with PurePlus Technology

Shell announced late in December of 2016 that its Pearl gas-to-liquid (GTL) plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, was operating at a reduced rate of production (approximately 50% of plan), due to unforeseen maintenance required on the plant’s gasifier units. According to Shell at the time of the announcement, “Pearl has a volume of GTL products in storage and Shell will work closely with customers to minimize impacts to supplies.”

Marketers are just now learning that maintenance continues on the Pearl gasifier units and because of this, Shell is enacting an allocation for certain lubricants. Specifically effected are lubricants where SOPUS markets the product as containing PurePlus (GTL) base oil technology. This includes any synthetic where SOPUS markets the product as containing PurePlus base oil, Pennzoil Gold Synthetic Blend with dexos approval, Shell Rotella T5 HDEO (10W-30, 15W-40), and Shell’s flagship HDEO (Rotella T6 5W-40). Although the actual level of allocation has not been formally announced, some understand it will be in the area of 85% of total.

Whereas the duration of the allocation remains unknown, marketers are getting word that it could be months (3 to 4) before Pearl is running at full capacity.

JobbersWorld reached out to Shell for additional insights and they had no further commentary beyond what JobbersWorld has written.