The single oil solution debate rages on

Sulphur content is known to help with cylinder lubrication and some, such as Castrol and MAN, say that different grades of engine oil are needed in future, matched to the fuel type.

This was the theme of MAN Diesel’s recently issued customer service letters, which Total Lubmarine has expressed concern over.

Lubmarine and others, such as Mobil, believe that they can make an oil that works with varying fuel sulphur content a ‘single oil solution’ and regard the MAN and Castrol approach as old fashioned.

MAN’s technical documents recommend that single oil solutions are approved for the vast majority of existing engines – 99% of current engines – but not yet for the 1% of engine represented by the long stroke Mark 9 and future G series.

Jean-Philippe Roman, technical director, Total Lubmarine, said: “Several of the new ‘single oil solution’ type products that have been launched recently, demonstrate that conventional wisdom on cylinder oils is moving away from old generation products and towards a high-performance future. Five years of hard, corroborated evidence has shown that the Universal product gives excellent results under all operating conditions.”

Furthermore, Mr Roman adds that the single oil solution offers significant savings as only one product is required. He added: “We believe it is misleading to categorise lubricants solely according to their lube oil base number – ‘old generation mid range formulations’ do not equate to or match the performance of the new generation ‘universal’ or ‘single’ solutions.”

Lubmarine maintains that the new chemistry, developed over five years ago for Talusia Universal, underpins the next generation of lubrication products.