Winners announced for the 2022 F&L Asia Awards

The F&L Asia Awards showcase and celebrate the outstanding contributions and exceptional performance of those working in the fuels and lubricants industry in Asia. After a brief hiatus in 2020 and 2021, due to the impacts of Covid-19, we are excited to confirm the return of these prestigious honours and to announce the award winners for 2022. Recipients will be acknowledged at the F&L Asia Awards Dinner on 28 April at the Siam Anantara Bangkok, during the F+L Week Live! event in Bangkok, Thailand. 

F&L Asia Person of the Year

Dr. SSV Ramakumar from IndianOil is the “2022 F&L Asia Person of the Year”. Dr. SSV Ramakumar is director, R&D and planning & business development, on the Board of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IndianOil), a Fortune 500 company. He has a long and celebrated career at IndianOil with more than three decades of uninterrupted experience in the downstream hydrocarbons sector, notably in the areas of lubricant technology, refinery process research and catalyst development. 

The “F&L Asia Person of the Year” recognises an individual’s outstanding contribution to the fuels and lubricants industry in Asia, whether from the oil, additives, automotive, or other stakeholder industry.

Dr. Ramakumar has been instrumental in the development of India’s home-grown, OEM-approved marine lubricant technology, which catapulted IndianOil’s SERVO lubricants into the select league of five MNCs, and has spearheaded the complete indigenisation of IndianOil’s flagship INDMAX refining technology. Dr. Ramakumar was chosen for this prominent industry award for his pioneering work in alternative energy programmes including waste-to-energy, bio, solar and energy storage. He is steering the IndianOil hydrogen endeavours and is on several committees working on defining the strategies for the inclusion of hydrogen in the energy mix.

F&L Asia Future Leaders Award

The “F&L Asia Future Leaders Award” for 2022 goes to Kaustav Sinha. This award recognises our industry’s emerging leaders, with nominees including individuals with up to 15 years of industry experience. Kaustav graduated from the University of Pune in Maharashtra, India in 2002 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Instrumentation and Control Engineering. He then obtained his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2008. In 2019, he obtained an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Kaustav is currently manager, global strategic account, and is responsible for managing people, P&L, strategy, business development and operations of one of Chevron Oronite’s largest customer portfolios. Before this, he was leading Chevron Oronite’s North American sales portfolio where he played a vital role in growing the regional business and developed a growth portfolio with a multi-million-dollar opportunity pipeline.

Kaustav has actively participated in several industry advocacy positions where he worked closely with industry groups, energy companies and OEMs to develop new specifications and build strategic partnerships. His work in smart materials, automotive tribology and lubricants was extensively presented at 40+ leading conferences and published in over 20 journal articles, proprietary technical reports, and patent applications.

A strong advocate of women and minorities, Kaustav volunteers in science, technology, engineering, and business events that support their cause. He is on Chevron’s founding enterprise leadership team of Elevate, an inhouse diversity and inclusive program, and regularly engages in diversity, inclusion and mentoring initiatives. 

F&L Asia Lifetime Achievement Award

Steve Puckett, OBE, is a business leader and independent director with extensive experience in growing businesses in Asia. Over the past 40 years, Steve has forged an impressive career in the energy industry. Originally with ExxonMobil, he held senior executive positions in Asia including in Japan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore. For the past 22 years, Steve has been consulting to clients that have included major international and national oil companies, blue-chip financial institutions, global professional services organisations and government authorities. He is executive chairman of TRI-ZEN International Pte Ltd, an advisory business with a primary focus on strategy, business development, M&A for the energy industries in Asia.

We are excited to be able to recognise Steve’s long-term commitment to the industry with the 2022 “F&L Asia Lifetime Achievement Award”. Steve is the recognised expert on the wider Asia business environment, having developed numerous businesses and projects across the region, ranging from billion-dollar country entries for international corporates to entrepreneurial start-ups. Steve is also the co-founding director of the Asian Lubricants Industry Association (ALIA), the industry body representing Asia’s lubricants value chain, and has been instrumental in enabling ALIA to withstand the challenges presented by Covid-19 at a time when most member companies were focused on their survival. Steve was instrumental in drafting the ALIA Sustainability Statement and in influencing the ALIA Council to make sustainability a key focus for the fledgling organisation.

F&L Asia Product Development of the Year Award

The “F&L Asia Product Development of the Year” award recognises innovation in the fuels and lubricants industry, in particular, products that have made significant improvements to processes, efficiency and ecological use. We are pleased to announce that the 2022 recipient is Evogen 4006 from the Lubrizol Corporation.

The global passenger vehicle market has seen a rapid increase in the number of electric and hybrid electric vehicles, however, existing lubricants are not optimised to provide the efficiency and requisite protection of e-devices. Lubrizol launched the Evogen 4001 additive technology in 2019 to address the tougher e-environment. At the time of commercialisation, the product was the first dedicated e-axle fluid available around the world. Original equipment manufacturers have their own unique electric motor design, thus requiring a specific lubricant for their electric motors to fit their needs for great performance. Thus, in 2020, Lubrizol developed Evogen 4006 for a Chinese OEM using a wet electric motor.

Evogen 4006 improves copper corrosion protection and enhances electric properties while maintaining excellent gear/bearing protection compared to conventional manual transmission fluids (MTF). Lubrizol has carefully balanced the anti-wear and extreme pressure chemistry to achieve an ideal equilibrium of load carrying, copper corrosion protection and electrical conductivity. These have been rigorously evaluated in conventional lubricant tests as well as new tests better suited to the new environment, such as the copper wire corrosion test. The additive package also offers improved oxidative stability and potential for efficiency gains by enabling durability at low viscosity. Lubrizol also anticipates a 39.2% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with conventional MTFs.

Tickets to attend the F&L Asia Awards Dinner on April 28 may be purchased here.

F+L Week 2022, will be held from April 27-29 at the Siam Anantara Bangkok in Thailand. Virtual registration (live streaming and on-demand) is also available through our powerful networking platform, which will be launched soon.