Engine oil pumped from American soil?

[PT1]

Originally Posted By: Lorenzo
Oil is a commodity, which means trying to deprive foreign suppliers of your money by buying from domestic supliers is useless. Its like taking a bucket of water from only one side of a lake.

The only way to reduce the amount of money going to those foreign sources is to reduce total demand which then reduces price. That means smaller more efficient cars, houses, and less consumption overall. I don't think this is a choice our fellow Americans are willing to make because it would mean some (gasp) sacrifice.


+1 you are correct. But I did "downsize" all of the family vehicles last year and cut our fuel consumption by almost 40%. Well worth doing. No more V8 engines. All I-4 or V6.

 

[Ken2]

Originally Posted By: rudolphna
Maybe I'm going to switch to BradPenn/Kendall next Oil change....

Kendall is one of the ConocoPhillips76 brands, and exactly the same product as those three brands. ConocoPhillips is a big importer of Korean Group III synthetic base oil for use in their low price syn blend oils, and maybe their full syn.

Originally Posted By: heypete
Isn't nearly all gasoline refined close to the point of consumption? You don't see, for example, oil being refined to gasoline in Kuwait, having the gasoline put on tankers, and shipped to the US. Rather, they ship the crude here, we refine it, and sell it domestically.

Europe has their own refineries.
Nope. It all depends on price. For years the Europeans exported gasoline to the U.S. when their drivers switched to diesel in a big way and they didn't switch their refining equipment as quickly. We've also imported Chinese gasoline in the past when the price was favorable--of course it was re-blended and re-additized as needed to bring it to the standards of the company that retailed it. It all depends on the price. In addition, the refineries and distribution terminals buy, sell, trade, and borrow product from each other frequently. They may add their own additive package (or not), but there is no telling who actually refined the gasoline that comes out of any certain pump on any certain day.

 

[IntegraVT]

Originally Posted By: Ken2
Originally Posted By: rudolphna
Maybe I'm going to switch to BradPenn/Kendall next Oil change....

Kendall is one of the ConocoPhillips76 brands, and exactly the same product as those three brands. ConocoPhillips is a big importer of Korean Group III synthetic base oil for use in their low price syn blend oils, and maybe their full syn.


Yep, the GT-1 Syn I'm running now clearly says product of Korea on the bottle.

 

[milwaukee]

Korea is a friend of the US just like Canada (maybe more so) so is it ok to use Korean oils?

 

[EagleFTE]

Crude is a global commodity but are there motor oil brands that use oil products from the Gulf (of Mexico that is) or Canada exclusively? Also I would think that PAO and Ester would be produced largely in the US using US base products to derive them but maybe not. It looks like ARG (Brad Penn) is the best bet for domestic motor oil as it comes exclusively from about four states in the NE USA.

Group III syns could come from anywere (Brad Penn aside) since it's origin is crude. But would it be correct to say GIV and GV syns are domestic for the most part?

 

[benjamming]

Originally Posted By: milwaukee
Korea is a friend of the US just like Canada (maybe more so) so is it ok to use Korean oils?


The US doesn't have friends but rather allies. Your choice what to do.

 

[glxpassat]

I talked to a Conoco tech about their syn oils several years ago and they told me it was made with PAO. Of coarse that may have changed by now.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Isn't PAO/Ester synthetics primarily made from natural gas using gas to liquid technology? At least I read that once. We primarily use our own NG but we also import a lot of it. Not really sure we can ever use exclusively North American sources of anything anymore. Everything gets so mixed up in all the processes, not sure anyone can define something as a pure North American source or final product. Take Motiva, they are the largest source of refined Group II and Group II+ base oils. They are Texas based but are a conglomeration of owners including Saudi Arabia. I am pretty sure they use both North American, Venezuelan, and Middle East crude. I recently read an article of Russian and Indian companies trying to capture a larger share of the Group IV market.

Originally Posted By: EagleFTE
Crude is a global commodity but are there motor oil brands that use oil products from the Gulf (of Mexico that is) or Canada exclusively? Also I would think that PAO and Ester would be produced largely in the US using US base products to derive them but maybe not. It looks like ARG (Brad Penn) is the best bet for domestic motor oil as it comes exclusively from about four states in the NE USA.

Group III syns could come from anywere (Brad Penn aside) since it's origin is crude. But would it be correct to say GIV and GV syns are domestic for the most part?

 

[milwaukee]

Originally Posted By: benjamming
Originally Posted By: milwaukee
Korea is a friend of the US just like Canada (maybe more so) so is it ok to use Korean oils?


The US doesn't have friends but rather allies. Your choice what to do.


Just trying to pad your post count?

 

[Bluestream]

Originally Posted By: Lorenzo
Oil is a commodity, which means trying to deprive foreign suppliers of your money by buying from domestic supliers is useless. Its like taking a bucket of water from only one side of a lake.

The only way to reduce the amount of money going to those foreign sources is to reduce total demand which then reduces price. That means smaller more efficient cars, houses, and less consumption overall. I don't think this is a choice our fellow Americans are willing to make because it would mean some (gasp) sacrifice.


I would say that pretty much sums it up.