LUKOIL Lubricants, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year in Turkey, is shifting up with its expanding product line. We came together with Akın Toppare, Technical Sales Manager, and Ayşegül Yalım, Manager of Technical Support Group, to learn about the duties and future objectives of the Technical Services unit, which have an important place in lubricant sales.
What do you do as the Technical Services team? Could you please enlighten us in general?
As LUKOIL Technical Services team, we provide all kinds of technical support to our sales team in the field. We prepare product technical documents (TDS, MSDS), arrange technical visits to customers, evaluate customer usage according to operating conditions and determine the most suitable products, receive and review customer complaints, provide feedback with technical examination reports, submit used routine oil analyses to customers along with our comments, conduct the technical follow-up of tender processes, follow the approval processes with OEMs, and monitor -product formulation and development processes.
Is there any area that you particularly focus on?
As of the second quarter of this year, we have further expanded our passenger vehicle product line. Approximately 13 different products have been added to our passenger vehicle product line named GENESIS. Some of these products have already been on the market but there are some approval updates. New products are added to the portfolio in order to better meet market demands.
In our commercial vehicle product line, we have added oils in different viscosity grades meeting the latest Euro 6 emission standards.
In industrial fluids, our product development works continue for cutting oils.
In greases, our Intesmo grease plant located in the Volgograd, Russia provides products that specifically address to the needs of different sectors.
We are working harder and harder every day to meet market and customer demands and get the approvals of original equipment manufacturers.
Please tell us about your ongoing projects.
Since March, we have been organizing events for the launch of our GENESIS passenger car product line. At these events, we provide information to our distributors and their customers about our new products and share new technical details about our existing products.
Likewise, we often organize sector-based trainings and field visits to our direct sales channel customers. In scope of our private label projects, GM’s genuine motor oils, and Dalgakıran Kompresör’s compressor oils are produced in our Aliağa plant. In the near future, we will have new private label projects with our customers.
With the products produced in our Intesmo Grease Plant that was founded in 2016, we are aiming to access grease consumers in Turkey more effectively. In this regard, we have primarily focused on the iron and steel industry. In our grease plant, the R&D team, created by LUKOIL’s own investments and the government support, is developing new products. We have been working in collaboration with this strong team since 2016.
We are working on bringing products such as metalworking fluids, circulating oils and special greases to the Turkish market. Of course, these are long-term projects because there is a brand recognition process and there is a trial process. Once these processes are completed we want to further strengthen our presence in industrial oils.
Is there any difference between the products produced in your Aliağa plant and the products in Russia?
In 2016, our R&D center in Russia started the harmonization process. Thanks to our studies we have carried out together with the R&D team in Russia, we are currently using the same formulas in our automotive and industrial product groups in all our plants. The harmonization process has been completed in accordance with the TSE (Turkish Statistical Institute) criteria.
