Chinese firms boost share of high-end lube market

China’s Xinhua news agency reported that homegrown companies have managed to break the monopoly of foreign-based companies over the country’s high-end lubricant market. It claims that domestic lube companies, such as Sinopec, now enjoy a 35% share of this market segment. Lube oil consumption in China has risen by 50% since 2000, it said, with an average annual growth rate of 5.2%, the government-controlled news agency reported. It is now the world’s largest lubricant market, surpassing the United States, as China also became the world’s largest automotive market. There has also been a shift to higher quality lubes with the growth in private car ownership in China, as well as growth in the luxury car segment. (April 11,2011)