Oh JAG, now you've done it.
Amsoil and Group III
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Originally Posted By: Mike_dup1
Quote:
Amsoil BUYS base stocks from Exxon-Mobil, do you think the world's largest supplier of PAO's would not use them in their own product?
Everyone seems to make this assumption. The company they deal with does not produce Mobil oils.
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One of the vendors we work with is Exxon Mobil Chemical. This is not to be confused with Exxon Mobil motor oil.
AMSOIL purchases additives and base oil chemistries from a variety of vendors. Those chemistries are the most advanced chemistries in the world. In many cases, they are chemistries of such high quality that other companies are unwilling to invest the money.
So, lets pretend for a moment that I own a company called "EDSOIL". Now, I create sub-companies for my various R&D divisions, such as "EDSOIL Chemicals" and "EDSOIL Lubricants". These divisions are made for books, financial and other reasons that are irrelevant. The point is, they are both subsidiaries of the EDSOIL corporation, just as Exxon-Mobil Chemical and Exxon-Mobil Lubricants are subsidiaries of Exxon-Mobil.
Giving a different piece of the pie a different name doesn't exclude it from being part of the pie........
Quote:
Amsoil BUYS base stocks from Exxon-Mobil, do you think the world's largest supplier of PAO's would not use them in their own product?
Everyone seems to make this assumption. The company they deal with does not produce Mobil oils.
Quote:
One of the vendors we work with is Exxon Mobil Chemical. This is not to be confused with Exxon Mobil motor oil.
AMSOIL purchases additives and base oil chemistries from a variety of vendors. Those chemistries are the most advanced chemistries in the world. In many cases, they are chemistries of such high quality that other companies are unwilling to invest the money.
So, lets pretend for a moment that I own a company called "EDSOIL". Now, I create sub-companies for my various R&D divisions, such as "EDSOIL Chemicals" and "EDSOIL Lubricants". These divisions are made for books, financial and other reasons that are irrelevant. The point is, they are both subsidiaries of the EDSOIL corporation, just as Exxon-Mobil Chemical and Exxon-Mobil Lubricants are subsidiaries of Exxon-Mobil.
Giving a different piece of the pie a different name doesn't exclude it from being part of the pie........
Originally Posted By: JAG
BerndV, do you think PAO comes from a non-petroleum source?
Eric, you are very insightful IMO, as is your above post in particular.
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
BerndV, do you think PAO comes from a non-petroleum source?
Eric, you are very insightful IMO, as is your above post in particular.
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
Originally Posted By: BerndV
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
Right, so it's ok (meeting your personal definition of synthetic) for base oils to have their roots in petroleum. What is it about the way Group III oils are produced or their properties that you have a problem with?
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
Right, so it's ok (meeting your personal definition of synthetic) for base oils to have their roots in petroleum. What is it about the way Group III oils are produced or their properties that you have a problem with?
Originally Posted By: JAG
Originally Posted By: BerndV
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
Right, so it's ok (meeting your personal definition of synthetic) for base oils to have their roots in petroleum. What is it about the way Group III oils are produced or their properties that you have a problem with?
The problem I have is simply that they should not be referred to as "synthetic", nor should an oil labeled "fully synthetic" contain any. A good food industry analogy is whey protein isolate. It starts as a small component of milk. Through a process of low heat filtration and distillation, the whey protein component of milk is isolated to a purity approaching 99%. Nobody would refer to whey protein isolate or anything containing it as synthetic. The same goes for Group III. To grossly oversimplify, it is essentially a highly distilled petroleum byproduct, not a synthetic. BTW, it is not my personal definition of synthetic. However, my definition of synthetic has always been the same as that given by Molakule, and I don't know anybody on this forum that could match his expertise.
Originally Posted By: BerndV
Non-isomerized oligomer type PAO's do not occur naturally in petroleum if that is what you are asking. Do the some of the building blocks of these molecules come from petroleum? Yes.
Right, so it's ok (meeting your personal definition of synthetic) for base oils to have their roots in petroleum. What is it about the way Group III oils are produced or their properties that you have a problem with?
The problem I have is simply that they should not be referred to as "synthetic", nor should an oil labeled "fully synthetic" contain any. A good food industry analogy is whey protein isolate. It starts as a small component of milk. Through a process of low heat filtration and distillation, the whey protein component of milk is isolated to a purity approaching 99%. Nobody would refer to whey protein isolate or anything containing it as synthetic. The same goes for Group III. To grossly oversimplify, it is essentially a highly distilled petroleum byproduct, not a synthetic. BTW, it is not my personal definition of synthetic. However, my definition of synthetic has always been the same as that given by Molakule, and I don't know anybody on this forum that could match his expertise.
Another way to look at it.
The powers that be determined several years ago that GIII had been "synthesized" and more importantly had performance levels on a par with V and VI. The debate has diminished through the years as GIII has proven itself in the marketplace. Just as pao has different strengths and weaknesses vs. poe so too does GIII.
It is another synthetic.
The powers that be determined several years ago that GIII had been "synthesized" and more importantly had performance levels on a par with V and VI. The debate has diminished through the years as GIII has proven itself in the marketplace. Just as pao has different strengths and weaknesses vs. poe so too does GIII.
It is another synthetic.
Someone quotes their own post as being insightful??
With these MSDS's i know what i buy:
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
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Don't we all find ourselves insightful?
How can you view your insights (on any topic) as anything else?
Originally Posted By: yannis
With these MSDS's i know what i buy:
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
Oh, please tell us more. Why?
With these MSDS's i know what i buy:
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
Oh, please tell us more. Why?
Originally Posted By: yannis
With these MSDS's i know what i buy:
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
Erm.....and how is it you do that?
Can anyone else tell me?
With these MSDS's i know what i buy:
ELF EXCELLIUM 0W40
ELF EXCELLIUM 5W-40
And with this i don't :
Amsoil AMO 10W40
Erm.....and how is it you do that?
Can anyone else tell me?
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: BerndV
Nobody would refer to whey protein isolate or anything containing it as synthetic. The same goes for Group III. To grossly oversimplify, it is essentially a highly distilled petroleum byproduct, not a synthetic.
Group III base oils are not just highly distilled, or refined in the sense that the process only removes certain hydrocarbons from a barrel of oil to make them. Calling Group III's highly-refined is not a really an accurate description of the hydrocracking and hydroisomerization process used to make modern Group III's. These processes go far beyond the traditional use of the word refining, or just taking out what you want out as in the solvent refining of Group I base oils. Hydrocracking and hydroisomerization results in molecules being striped apart and rebuilt using hydrogen. Modern Group III's are man-made oils -- it's a chemical engineering process with crude-oil + hydrogen.
Check out Chevron…
Quote:
The Synthetic Nature of Group III Base Oils….
Analysis of the feed and product from a commercial Group III production run show that a vast majority of feed molecules are synthetically altered by the three catalytic processes used to make modern all-hydroprocessed Group III base oils. These results support the claim that modern Group III base oils made utilizing an all-hydroprocessing route are essentially man-made or synthetic. In addition, their high performance in lubricant applications allows them to be used in high performance products often formulated with traditional synthetics such as PAO.
Nobody would refer to whey protein isolate or anything containing it as synthetic. The same goes for Group III. To grossly oversimplify, it is essentially a highly distilled petroleum byproduct, not a synthetic.
Group III base oils are not just highly distilled, or refined in the sense that the process only removes certain hydrocarbons from a barrel of oil to make them. Calling Group III's highly-refined is not a really an accurate description of the hydrocracking and hydroisomerization process used to make modern Group III's. These processes go far beyond the traditional use of the word refining, or just taking out what you want out as in the solvent refining of Group I base oils. Hydrocracking and hydroisomerization results in molecules being striped apart and rebuilt using hydrogen. Modern Group III's are man-made oils -- it's a chemical engineering process with crude-oil + hydrogen.
Check out Chevron…
Quote:
The Synthetic Nature of Group III Base Oils….
Analysis of the feed and product from a commercial Group III production run show that a vast majority of feed molecules are synthetically altered by the three catalytic processes used to make modern all-hydroprocessed Group III base oils. These results support the claim that modern Group III base oils made utilizing an all-hydroprocessing route are essentially man-made or synthetic. In addition, their high performance in lubricant applications allows them to be used in high performance products often formulated with traditional synthetics such as PAO.
This is most notable in the top of the line slack wax Grp III from SOPUS.
That is why I stated that it was a gross oversimplification. In order to stay on point, I did not want to get into the details of how Group III oils are manufactured beyond the fact that they are not synthetic.
Originally Posted By: BerndV
That is why I stated that it was a gross oversimplification. In order to stay on point, I did not want to get into the details of how Group III oils are manufactured beyond the fact that they are not synthetic.
As you said earlier, then this really is about semantics. Obviously many people who go beyond the semantics of this matter disagree with the definition you accept. I'm not into definition and semantic discussions so I'm likely done posting in this thread.
That is why I stated that it was a gross oversimplification. In order to stay on point, I did not want to get into the details of how Group III oils are manufactured beyond the fact that they are not synthetic.
As you said earlier, then this really is about semantics. Obviously many people who go beyond the semantics of this matter disagree with the definition you accept. I'm not into definition and semantic discussions so I'm likely done posting in this thread.
I found this in Wikipedia's dictionary (under "synthetic oil")-
"Group III base stocks are considered synthetic motor oil ONLY in the United States. [1]. Group III based lubricants are not allowed to be marketed as "synthetic" in any market outside of the USA."
Perhaps this is well known (I didn't know it) and I'm not sure that this adds anything to our discussion, but it's interesting.
"Group III base stocks are considered synthetic motor oil ONLY in the United States. [1]. Group III based lubricants are not allowed to be marketed as "synthetic" in any market outside of the USA."
Perhaps this is well known (I didn't know it) and I'm not sure that this adds anything to our discussion, but it's interesting.
MolaKule
Staff member
Quote:
my opinion of PAO basestocks have even dimmed a bit since I learned that esters have to be added to solve the non-polarity issue of the PAOs. You pay top dollar for the PAO, then you pay more for solving "problems" with the PAO.
On a formulationg note, GroupII+ and GroupIII also have the same problem.
my opinion of PAO basestocks have even dimmed a bit since I learned that esters have to be added to solve the non-polarity issue of the PAOs. You pay top dollar for the PAO, then you pay more for solving "problems" with the PAO.
On a formulationg note, GroupII+ and GroupIII also have the same problem.
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