Originally Posted By: chubbs1
There is a really good article in Lubes 'n' Greases magazine written by Tom that kind of explains the reasoning behind some of the price increases.
In summary additives have gotten more expensive because they are better, and I believe that, but the oil Co's are making a statement, tom kind of compared it to the water bottling comanies who charge exorbitant prices for something that comes out of your tap. People pay for it, and oil is becoming the same way. The oil co's are not just using the market to guide their prices, they are making a move. I personally don't see prices going down, so stock up if you find good deals.
+1 This article is a very good read.
Just to give a small amount of insight - materials cost in oil manufacturing have almost doubled in the past 18 months (for some key ingredients) depending on how you look at it, oil companies are finding what the market will bear while still maintaining profitable margins. Most retailers are lucky if they make 10% margin on finished oils (which is very bad for business in the retail world) so I am not surprised to see a shift in pricing.
Originally Posted By: SteveTheisen
So I guess I will ask a sciency question. Does anyone know if all the companies run different additive packages in the winter? The other theory I would assume driving up costs is the SN certification. Are companies using additives that are more scarce?
Fuel Additives change in the winter but generally oil doesn't. The reason is because you can't really control what bottle of oil of a certain grade is used in winter. There are differing packages between grades that some people like to gravitate toward in winter (ie 0w20 vs 10w40) mostly its the same basic ingredients just in different concentrations.
With SN oils because of the further reduction in %phosphorus (800ppm max) there are more experiments into other EP/AW/FM additives - insert Titanium, Moly, Boron, etc etc. (and yes some of these are more expensive - that's why zddp has been so popular for so long - not that it was necessarily the best, but good enough and very cost effective) There are some interesting developments in Nano technology too but I don't think it will become mainstream for probably about 10 years.
. Seriously though, even though I do not have Dino oil (conventional or synthetic) in any of my crankcases, it's a sliver of the amount of oil I use through gasoline and other areas. 
