By Derryn Wong

SHELL LUBRICANTS HAS announced the largest-ever refresh its product lines here: Shell Helix passenger car lubricants, Shell Advance motorcycle lubricants and Shell Rimula oils for diesel engines. Shell Lubricants are designed to protect all types of motor vehicle engines and to let them run at the highest efficiency for both performance and fuel saving benefits.

The revamped product lines all include new, improved packaging designs for ease of storage and pouring. A simpler naming system displays important information clearly, allowing customers to easily chose the most suitable product.

Shell Helix
Shell Helix Plus and Shell Helix Super will now be known as Shell Helix HX7 and Shell Helix HX5 respectively. Shell Helix Ultra retains the same name.

Shell Helix motor oils contain active cleansing technology to clean and lubricate the engine at the same time, allowing longer engine life and fuel efficiency. They also have increases resistance to oxidation and remain stable longer, along with superior shear resistance, which allows the oil to maintain viscosity under extreme forces.

Helix lubricants have been tested under the toughest conditions for three years by 1,000 motorists globally to assure the best lubricants on the market.

Shell Helix technology is tested by the Ferrari Formula One Team in their technical partnership with Shell.

Shell Advance
The Shell Advance range comprises Ultra 4T, SX 4T, S 4T for four-stroke engines and VSX 2T and SX 2T for two-stroke engines.

Shell Advance motorcycle lubricants contain special detergents and Dynamic Performance Additives (DPA) to remove carbon particles, allowing the engine to perform optimally until the next oil change.

Advance Ultra 4T is a new addition to the range. It’s a fully synthetic motorcycle oil for riders of high-performance motorcycles who demand only the best performance and cleaning ability from their oil.

Advance Ultra 4T is endorsed by the Ducati Corse MotoGP team and developed in conjunction with Ducati.

Shell Rimula
Shell’s new Rimula range of heavy-duty lubricants provides Energised Protection, thanks to its new adaptive technology that actually changes according to differing conditions within the engine. This protects the engine from the three critical elements of diesel powerplants: acids, deposits and wear. The range has six performance tiers from R1 to top-level R6, which is fully synthetic and delivers the highest protection and performance.

Story: Q&A with Tim Ford, Vice President, Shell Lubricants Asia Pacific and Jimmy Tan, Technical Manager, Lubricants South East Asia

CarBuyer caught up with Tim Ford and Jimmy Tan to find out about the company’s plans for the region.

CarBuyer: What are the most important improvements Shell has made to the refreshed product lineups?

Tim Ford: For the Helix range it’s the technological improvements that we bring to the customer like increased stability and the cleansing abilities of the oil. For the Advance range it’s the DPA (Dynamic Performance Additives).

CB: What are Shell’s most important sectors here, in terms of lubricants?

TF: Passenger cars are certainly our strongest segment and similarly for diesel engine oils our Rimula range is quite important as Shell works closely with many commercial fleets here. The motorcycle segment is quite small, compared to say, Indonesia, but Singapore is a regional hub, so it’s important to have a presence here in all sectors.

Jimmy Tan: There’s more than half a million cars on the road here in Singapore, so passenger cars are still our main area. Diesel vehicles are big too, but as compared to other countries they don’t travel very long distances.

CB: Has the recent economic turmoil changed Shell’s long or short term plans here and in the region?

TF: No, our long-term plans remain the same. We still aim for continued growth in Asia, because we believe that the economies will come back and this is a big hiccup, that the world is facing. How long it will last, we don’t know, but in the short term our investments like the continued expansion of the Woodlands Plant (Woodlands North Lubricants Oil Blending Plant, established in 1963), our projects in other countries, they will all continue.

CB: The markets of Asia-Pacific have just overtaken North America as the largest consumers of lubricants globally. Will we see more directives and action from Shell in accordance with this?

TF: We are focusing, as a company, more and more in Asia. We believe we have a very strong legacy like in Singapore, in some countries we’ve had a presence for more than 100 years and have a very strong reputation.

We are of course trying to constantly expand that, in developing markets like China and India, but we also already are in more markets and are more represented than our competitors.

But our growth is dependent on delivering the right products to the customers, we will grow with our customers