Monday, June 01, 2009

News from Europe indicates that “re-refining” of used oils is now strongly favored over burning the oil for energy.

As a result, re-refined oils could be supplying nearly a quarter of Europe’s base oil demand by 2020.

An article about the new EU Waste Directive was published he March 11, 2009 edition of Lube Report www.lubereport.com, shedding light on Europe’s new approach to recycling waste oil.

Approved Dec. 12, 2008, the Waste Directive is the new “backbone” of waste legislation in Europe, according to the Lube Report article. European state laws must be in compliance with the new directive by Dec. 12, 2010.

Underlying the new scheme is a five-step “waste hierarchy”:

1. Waste prevention
2. Preparing waste for reuse
3. Recycling — i.e. regeneration of waste oil to produce base oils
4. Recovery — i.e. energy recovery and conversion of waste oil to fuel
5. Disposal

The priority given to recycling waste oil has increased, so that recycling to base oil is now prioritized over energy recovery, or burning.

There are a number of key differences between earlier EU rules for waste oil disposal and the new directive. Under the old rules, states had to ensure safe collection and disposal of waste oils. Now, states must ensure that waste oils are collected separately.

Previously, the rules also prohibited mixing waste oils with PCBs. Now, no hazardous waste can be mixed with any other category of hazardous or non-hazardous waste.

A new provision in the directive allows member states to apply measures to ensure separate collection of used oil, and to restrict the shipment of waste oils to incineration facilities in order to prioritize used oil re-refining.

Total lubricant demand in the EU is currently about 5.7 million tons per year. About half this amount is deemed collectable as waste oil — the total amount currently collected is 2 million tons per year. Of the collected oil, 1.1 million tons are now burned, 700,000 tons are re-refined, and the remaining 200,000 tons go to other or unknown uses.

Total re-refined base oil production in the EU today is about 500,000 tons, representing only 8 percent of total lube consumption.

If all used oil is properly separated, 2.6 million tons could be collected, and fully 2 million tons could be re-refined, say experts. By 2020, provided demand hasn’t changed, EU re-refiners could be producing 1.3 million tons of re-refined base oils — 23 percent of total lube consumption.

Waste experts predict the directive will result in collection of more and better-quality used oil, and increased volumes of re-refined base oils, including premium quality stocks.

Information source: Lube Report
March 11, 2009