Russian engine oil bags American Petroleum Institute license

Moscow, Aug 17: Russia's state-owned gas major Gazprom's oil business subsidiary Gazpromneft-Lubricants announced on Friday that it has become the first Russian company to get the American Petroleum Institute's "API SN Plus" license for its motor oil product.

Gazpromneft-Lubricants said in a statement here that its engine oil product -- G-Energy FE DX1 5W-30 -- is intended for use in gasoline engines with turbo charging and direct fuel injection.

The license has been issued with retrospective effect from May 1, 2018, it said.

"The API SN Plus specification feature is tightening of the lubricant requirements to prevent LSPI (premature ignition of the fuel-air mixture at low speeds) that has become a problem of modern turbocharged high-performance engines due to the threat of its destruction and premature failure," the company said.

Its new engine oil has been successfully tested for compliance with the license requirements "including the latest Sequence IX engine test for premature ignition of the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder, developed by Ford engineers," it added.

Gazpromneft-Lubricants focuses on the production and sale of oils, greases and technical fluids.

Its parent, the oil producer Gazprom Neft, expects to have a better oil output dynamics in the current year following the recent agreement to ease output cuts reached between the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers like Russia, a company official told reporters on Thursday via conference call.