India’s growing market is also witnessing a shift towards more sustainable mobility solutions such as bio-fuels and electrification. “Shell is the first to introduce premium products and more sustainable products made from natural gas. We have products that are either biodegradable or made from re-refined base oils. For EVs we have a range of EV-specific products. There are several series. Transmission fluids that are very specific to EV drivetrains. An electric vehicle also has a battery that needs thermal management and we have products for that as well. We launched our first EV Fluid range in 2019. We have been in business for a few years. We are constantly working with large OEMs to improve these technologies, for example by providing our EV fluids to Mahindra for their Formula-E car This allows us to test and improve our products in the most extreme conditions.” Han said during the conversation.
Presently, Shell is one of the top three market players in the Passenger Car Motor Oil (PCMO) sector in India. The company sees India as a key growth market that will be among its top five markets by 2027. Han says, “While better products are a bucket that we focus on as a key priority. Our second priority is that we want to grow in the industrial sector, as it is the largest market and one There is also a growing sector. It includes agriculture, construction and electricity. All these sectors grow as GDP increases and we want to make sure that we increase our footprint in that space. We have growth in India, China, Indonesia and Brazil. Like the market where we want to grow.”
Mactelde De Haan, Executive Vice President, Shell Lubricants
“We also want to grow into customer solutions which means we want to move from just products to customer solutions by providing services to B2C customers. This includes oil changes, services, multi-care and oil monitoring, reliability Services like B2B services are also included, total fluid management and finally we want to expand into new areas as well. This means looking for thermal fluids for fluid management in batteries or data centers.” Currently, Shell Lubricants has a reach of 50,000 outlets in India, which the company aims to double by 2025. The plan is to expand its presence in North and East India by investing in its distribution infrastructure (feet-on-the-ground).
While the company sees scope for growth in the motorcycle oil and commercial vehicle oil sectors as well, there is another unconventional opportunity that has caught the attention of Shell Lubricants. It belongs to the growing market of data centers in India. All the electricity used by the IT components in the data center generates heat that needs to be managed. “Data centers are particularly interesting because today most of them are air-cooled and use a lot of energy. With our new immersion cooling fluids that we are producing, we can adjust the temperature of the data centers and their required computing power. Helping them reduce their overall carbon footprint. Our Immersion Cooling Fluids will be rolled out in India very soon!” Han said.
Representative image of data center
Compared to conventional air cooling, single-phase immersion cooling technology as an integrated solution can reduce energy use and carbon emissions in data centers by up to 48 percent through its high cooling efficiency that is compatible with data centers of all sizes. beneficial to. what’s more? Immersion technology can also be applied to electric vehicles, so it is a win-win for them Shell Lubricants India,