M Oil, fully purchased by the Demirören family in February 2017, produces lubricants with a hundred percent domestic capital in its high technology plant in İzmir Çiğli, which has an annual production capacity of 30 thousand tons. We discussed their production processes and sales objectives with Lubricant Plant Manager Kemal Balaban.
M Oil offers many products to the sector with its lubricant blending plant in İzmir. First of all, can we get detailed information about your plant?
Our lubricant blending plant has been operational for 18 years since 2000 in Çiğli Atatürk Organized Industrial Zone, İzmir. Today, it has an official installed capacity of 10,000 ton/year in a single shift according to TOBB’s capacity criteria, and it produces 172 different products in 442 different packing types. The business processes are being carried out by competent professionals within the management organization consisting of General Directorate, Factory Directorate, Quality Management, Quality Control Laboratory, Used Oil Analysis Laboratory, R&D Laboratory, Supply Planning and Purchasing, Production Realization, Logistics and Shipment Planning, Accounting and Administrative Affairs. The facility holds many quality, environment and system certificates for many years, such as TS-EN-ISO 9001 Quality System Certificate, TÜRKAK TS-EN ISO/IEC 17025 Laboratory Accreditation Certificate, TSE Laboratory Certificate, TS-EN-ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Certificate, and 21 TSE Product Compliance Certificates based on product groups.
Can you tell us about the business structure and history of M Oil?
We can define M Oil Lubricants as an organization which is smaller than the structural organizations of international and/or national firms in this sector but has great mobility and fast decision making ability for all questions and requests coming from the field, believes in team work and team success, and manages team work very well.
Achievements and experiences of all team members, their devoted efforts and commitment, and M Oil General Management’s and Demirören Holding Senior Management’s trust in our organization play an important role in our success. M Oil Lubricants has a significant place in the sector with main product groups including automotive engine oils, automotive gear and transmission oils, antifreeze products, industrial oils, marine oils, Viscosity Index Improver (for our own needs), windshield washer liquid (from external suppliers), industrial and automotive greases (from external suppliers). Today, M Oil has a wide range of products and packaging types, which is the successful result of 20 years of progress. On average, about 4 to 8 new products and/or packaging types are added annually to our product family in accordance with the requests from the customers and/or market researches.
M Oil Lubricants was established with the aim of selling its own lubricant products on the shelves of M Oil branded fuel stations, and today M Oil has around 450 fuel and LPG stations, along with 18 lubricant distributors across the country. It continues its path as a 100 percent Turkish brand, sought and trusted in markets.
As the Manager of the plant, please share with us the challenges you face and the applications that require special attention.
We plan the processes with monthly, weekly and daily programs, created on the basis of our projections for each year ahead. This workplan helps us see as much details as possible. Lubricant operations which consist of major activities such as energy groups, fuel, LPG, LNG, etc. require more active and dynamic action from the management as they have higher number of product types, packaging types, raw material and auxiliary material types and they require the management of more details and more checkpoints.
As M Oil, what are your plans and objectives for the future?
M Oil brand is a recognized brand that has proved its reliability in domestic and foreign markets and has ensured the satisfaction of its business partners and end users for approximately 20 years. This is a source of pride and honor for us, but it also brings many responsibilities and obligations. Ensuring constant development and improvement, evaluating customer demands and requests from the field, and meeting these demands and requests in the best way possible are very important for us. In this vein, we are planning to make new machine and equipment investments, and build new storage areas in the near future. Our objective is to increase our market share by 50 percent in the next three years. The market will continue to grow. As M Oil, we will reserve our place in this growing market.
Lastly, can you make a general assessment of the lubricants sector and comment on the current import and export numbers of Turkey? What do you expect from 2018 and onwards?
The sector has turned to its own dynamics in the last few years compared to previous years. In parallel with domestic and global economies in recent years, actors of the lubricants sector either protect their market share or achieve little increase. I think 2018 will not be different. As long as there are no major changes in domestic and foreign markets in terms of social, economic and political developments, particularly in our region, I don’t think the year 2018 will be different from the year 2017.
