Can we do more with used oil?

ValvolineNextGen was 50% re-refined, 50% virgin oil. VIOC pushed it hard for a while as a "green" alternative, at a higher cost-it flopped big time. I still have 10W40 Maxlife NextGen around, everything I ran it in did well with it. IIRC PQIA had an advisory for the 5W20 standard NG(?) With the profit pressures on the smaller blenders, I don't doubt that loads of re-refined base is going into bulk products...


So… who’s your source for that info? Got a citation?
 
So… who’s your source for that info? Got a citation?
The only thing technically wrong with his comment would be the amount,
Considering even folks that work at places that refine crude have made comments that used motor oils get added in with the crude feedstock I would say it’s a fungible product so you really can’t know for certain outside the products using this re-refined as a marketing gimmick.

It’s also worth noting It would be hard for used motor oil to be dirtier than crude oil.

Given its structure the used motor oil consumed at refineries historically at least could get used for feedstock to heat reactors and would likely end up in the fractions for tar, asphalt, bunker fuel and of coarse new motor oil.

By this logic all new motor oil (except NG produced products ) has at least some in there.
 
The only thing technically wrong with his comment would be the amount,
Considering even folks that work at places that refine crude have made comments that used motor oils get added in with the crude feedstock I would say it’s a fungible product so you really can’t know for certain outside the products using this re-refined as a marketing gimmick.

It’s also worth noting It would be hard for used motor oil to be dirtier than crude oil.

Given its structure the used motor oil consumed at refineries historically at least could get used for feedstock to heat reactors and would likely end up in the fractions for tar, asphalt, bunker fuel and of coarse new motor oil.

By this logic all new motor oil (except NG produced products ) has at least some in there.


I already mentioned this. But, I’ll repeat it. I used to be an owner of the re-refinery that Valvoline bought the base oil from. They used a formula my company developed and initially licensed. And I hauled the base oil to Valvoline. I also spoke to Valvoline at the North American lubricants expo about this. Because their entire presentation was on re-refined products.

Adan’s already covered.

My point in my post, is it’s blatantly wrong.
 
I know many will scoff but the Mobil 2 concept still works perfectly fine in a beater. A quality synthetic drained out after 5000 miles still has servicible life left. Will easily go another 5000 in a beater. Just sayin'.
Why change the oil if it has life left in it?
 
Doesn't used engine oil contain carcinogenic compounds. ?

I knew a professional garage mechanic that died young from cancer. He heated his garage with used engine oil. There may or may not be a link between the two but I don't think I'd take the chance.
 
If you are near an oil refinery, slop oil can just be added to crude oil. It will go through the stills, and come out in the same streams it came out of its first trip through the stills.
 
So… who’s your source for that info? Got a citation?
Just memory, it was advertised as being 50/50. Let me see if the BITOG search function works… Yup, here’s one:
 
I already mentioned this. But, I’ll repeat it. I used to be an owner of the re-refinery that Valvoline bought the base oil from. They used a formula my company developed and initially licensed. And I hauled the base oil to Valvoline. I also spoke to Valvoline at the North American lubricants expo about this. Because their entire presentation was on re-refined products.

Adan’s already covered.

My point in my post, is it’s blatantly wrong.
So Valvoline LIED in a press release about it? Was NextGen ALL re-refined base, ala Safety-Kleen?
 
So Valvoline LIED in a press release about it? Was NextGen ALL re-refined base, ala Safety-Kleen?

Lied? I would say they “bent” the truth a little bit and rounded the average down.


It was between 52-68% Group II+ re-refined product. Depending on if you were making a 5w20 / 5w30 / 10w30 / 10w40. It would change slightly. The 5wXX’s required more group III’s to hit the pour point. So it would have less group II+ in there. The 10w30 / 10w40s could almost be straight group II. But you would splash them with group III’s to make sure you had the cold crank point secured.

Then the rest was an additive package.

And it wasn’t SK.
 
Many years ago in the early 60's a local place sold re-refined motor oil. Everyone considered it bottomfeeder motor oil. However my dad said it was actually better than virgin oil.
 
I knew a guy that had a cummins 5.9L p-pump log skidder, and to "save" burned used motor oil mixed with kerosene, diesel, etc....... Whatever was cheap or free.

The used oil ended up accumulating in the crankcase that presented as an overfull condition. Also popped a headgasket deep out in the woods.
If it's very well filtered wouldn't be the worse thing.
Cummins used to have a system in bigger engines that had an oil tank for topping off and it would pull crankcase oil and inject it with fuel to burn.
I'm not remembering the name, but it wasn't that long ago... 90s-early 2000s I think.
 
Lied? I would say they “bent” the truth a little bit and rounded the average down.


It was between 52-68% Group II+ re-refined product. Depending on if you were making a 5w20 / 5w30 / 10w30 / 10w40. It would change slightly. The 5wXX’s required more group III’s to hit the pour point. So it would have less group II+ in there. The 10w30 / 10w40s could almost be straight group II. But you would splash them with group III’s to make sure you had the cold crank point secured.

Then the rest was an additive package.

And it wasn’t SK.
No wonder the non-MaxLife thinner ones had issues with excessive NOACK, etc.
 
No wonder the non-MaxLife thinner ones had issues with excessive NOACK, etc.

Yes, that base oil had a Noack issue. The refinery only put a single cut out. So there wasn’t a splitter. Thus both the Vi of the base oil and the Noack was governed by the feed stocks in.
 
Sometimes .gov needs to do something slightly more expensive to reduce resource use and form markets
Same with penalizing gasoline blended without ethanol through the RIN system. These matters are not put up for public vote is my gripe.

I found one other retail partially blended from re-refined oil it's from Phillips 66 called Firebird. There are no Phillips 66 retail oils available where I live so I have no idea about the retail price point. We'll see whether this takes off in today's retail market.

https://www.phillips66lubricants.com/product/shield-firebird/
 
The only thing technically wrong with his comment would be the amount,
Considering even folks that work at places that refine crude have made comments that used motor oils get added in with the crude feedstock I would say it’s a fungible product so you really can’t know for certain outside the products using this re-refined as a marketing gimmick.

It’s also worth noting It would be hard for used motor oil to be dirtier than crude oil.

Given its structure the used motor oil consumed at ngrefineries historically at least could get used for finifeedstock to heat reactors and would likely end up in the efractions for tar, asphalt, bunker fuel and of coarse new motor oil.

IlIl. By this logic all new motor oil (except NG produced products ) has at least some in there.
I worked at multiple petroleum refineries and none I worked at blended used motor oil with the incoming crude. I've mentioned before the additives that transform base oils to Lubricants are poisons for catalysts in the refining process. Used oil re-refineries use a process technology called thin film evaporation upstream of the (catalytic) hydrotreater. No crude refineries anywhere have a setup like this. Remember crude oil refineries produce many other products than base oils, a typical crude refinery isn't set up to even produce base oils, the base oils are a niche. There are specific units to produce base oils at select refineries. Even the Shell Pearl facility with its configuration produces products other than base oils.
 
I worked at multiple petroleum refineries and none I worked at blended used motor oil with the incoming crude. I've mentioned before the additives that transform base oils to Lubricants are poisons for catalysts in the refining process. Used oil re-refineries use a process technology called thin film evaporation upstream of the (catalytic) hydrotreater. No crude refineries anywhere have a setup like this. Remember crude oil refineries produce many other products than base oils, a typical crude refinery isn't set up to even produce base oils, the base oils are a niche. There are specific units to produce base oils at select refineries. Even the Shell Pearl facility with its configuration produces products other than base oils.
80% of used oil doesn’t go to a re-refiner (us centric). And no most of that isn’t going on the ground either.

There is a claim of 5-10% re-refined being in the motor oil market though (us) euro zone is higher.

Based on this 60% of used oil is recycled but only 1/3 to half in a re-refiner, so some non-re-refiners are “recycling” used oil

IMG_6054.webp
 
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Here is a related thread:

 
Blending into fuel oil or direct use for heating is still resource conserving by substituting for crude oil derivatives into whatever fuel grade is in use.

This is quite different to blending used motor oil into unrefined crude oil. A refiner isn't even required it's just a blending operation. An easy way at least thus far for reusing used motor oil.

Entities like Houston Fuel Oil constantly blend various crude refining products into specific grades of heavy fuel oil, largely for the global maritime trade. Lots of cargo ships with Port of Houston as their destination need to be refueled as well as fueloil shipped outside of Houston. They're just one pretty big player but nothing like what goes on in Singapore.
 
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