China’s refrigeration oil market is highly dependent on foreign supplies

Refrigeration oil is an oil mainly used for lubrication of moving parts in refrigeration machines. Because the machine models and usage ranges are different, when choosing refrigeration oil, you should also choose it based on the type of oil. In the machine, refrigeration oil mainly plays four functions: lubrication, sealing, cooling and energy regulation. It can effectively reduce the friction and wear of the machine, thereby extending the service life of the machine.

Refrigeration oil can be divided into two categories according to the type of base oil: the first category is traditional mineral oil, a mixture of refined liquid hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum, mainly a mixture of saturated naphthenes and paraffins, crude oil normal pressure and vacuum fractionation, solvent It is obtained by extraction, dewaxing and hydrorefining; the second type is synthetic polyol ester oil, which is a kind of synthetic oil. It belongs to Category Five oils (APIV) in the API base oil classification and can be used as lubricating oil. Base oil, mainly used for compressor oil, refrigeration oil (refrigeration oil for air conditioning or refrigeration equipment), aviation lubricating oil, gas turbine oil, vacuum pump oil, biodegradable hydraulic oil, heat transfer oil, high temperature oven oil, metal processing Oil, high-temperature grease, etc. are relatively high-end lubricating base oils and are more expensive.

The released “2021-2026 Refrigeration Oil Industry Market In-depth Research and Investment Prospects Forecast Analysis Report” pointed out that although my country’s regulations on refrigeration oil Product research and development has a history of many years, but the industrialization of refrigeration oil started relatively late. Affected by multiple factors such as industrial foundation, technical level, and raw materials, the number of manufacturing enterprises in my country’s refrigeration oil industry is still very small, and the scale of enterprises is generally small. It is large, has limited production capacity and product quality, and cannot compare with large multinational companies. China’s domestic refrigeration oil production capacity is extremely small, and more than 98% of its products rely on foreign supplies.

In recent years, large petrochemical companies such as PetroChina and Sinopec and their affiliated companies have begun to strengthen the development of related products. At present, certain results have been achieved, and some companies have begun production and sales. Among China’s refrigeration oil manufacturers, PetroChina Co., Ltd. started the earliest and has the largest production scale. However, it has many business types and refrigeration oil is not its main product. Hunan Lingyi Refrigeration Equipment Co., Ltd. is an emerging enterprise specializing in the production of refrigeration oil; Sinochem Blue Sky Group Co., Ltd. produces refrigerant and refrigeration oil at the same time, and its production scale is small.

In recent years, environmentally friendly HFC refrigerants have been used more and more widely. The demand market for synthetic refrigeration oils such as POE, PAG, and PVE is growing rapidly. However, the domestic supply of refrigeration oils is very limited. In addition, Mobil, Idemitsu, Castrol, and Dow Refrigeration oil multinational companies such as Dahl and Sun have established mature sales systems in China. my country’s import volume of refrigeration oil is large and has maintained a rapid growth trend driven by the development of downstream markets.

Investment analysts pointed out that in the future, as my country’s research on refrigeration oil technology continues to deepen, related technologies will gradually be commercialized in the market. The supply scale of my country’s refrigeration oil will continue to increase, forming a certain substitution effect on imported products. However, as foreign brands have already formed a strong influence in the Chinese market, have relatively complete sales networks, and have excellent product performance, it is expected that the dominance of imported products will continue in the short term.