Thank you for contacting Castrol
Our 0W-30 product like all others are constantly under review for performance and applicability to vehicles in the field. I suspect if you had the date codes of the bottles he refers to you'd see there was probably some time between the production of each.
We produce and utilize formulas from various sources, including North America and Europe depending on the product, performance and component sourcing.
Products may vary in raw materials as a result of the regional production facility. However, the end performance met whether API or
ACEA, is still the same.