Renkert makes carbon footprint clear for customers

CLEVELAND—When talking sustainability, language matters.

Depending on perspective, two sets of eyes can see things very differently. And in the end, the words chosen as to how "sustainable" a particular material may—or may not—be, can put a whole different light on things.

Mark Proudfoot, Renkert Oil L.L.C. senior vice president and chief technical officer, knows this first hand. You see, Morgantown, Pa.-based Renkert gets a lot of requests from customers for information on the carbon footprint of its products.

Renkert is a distributor of Chevron's Paralux-brand premium process oils, sells products for other firms and produces its own line of USP-level white oils for pharmacopoeia, food grade and medical. Most of it is used in thermoplastic elastomers products, along with some in EPDM goods.

A good percentage of its rubber process oils end up in consumer goods, including automotive components.

And Renkert's customers want to relay their successes in sustainability, so they ask for the data from their suppliers, which Proudfoot said is understandable.

One thing customers want to know is how much mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) and mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) are in Renkert's products.

For most of the firm's offerings, the aromatics check in at less than 1 percent, so basically zero. And customers like to hear that.

But when they hear that the MOSH, or saturated hydrocarbons, is 100 percent, the knee-jerk reaction is that that level must be bad.

When Proudfoot explains that is what the MOSH percentage should be—as that's what defines the mineral oil—they understand and are relieved it's not aromatics.

Recently, the Renkert executive said he was looking at the carbon footprint of re-refined oil, and had to do some investigating to find out why there was a wide discrepancy in what was being reported vs. the numbers he was crunching.

"It's a good use of engine oils that have been used," Proudfoot told Rubber News at the International Elastomer Conference in Cleveland. "Some of our customers really like to be able to say we are re-using oil as opposed to using virgin material."

But he noticed that one of the re-refiners was saying that their material reduced the carbon footprint of the oil by 78 percent when compared to virgin oil. Proudfoot thought that was quite an impressive number, as it's a complicated process to get that low of a carbon footprint for a mineral oil.

So he did his own calculation based on reports, and came up with a much lower improvement than what the re-refiner was claiming.

"I was thinking I made a mistake, so I was reluctant to publish the numbers to our customers, who were waiting for it," he said.

But Proudfoot figured out why the re-refiners were reporting such a large improvement in their carbon footprint.

"They were including burning the used oil as a carbon dioxide source," he said. "If you use engine oil and you burn it at the end, you make a lot of CO2, because every carbon triples in weight when you add oxygen to it. And that's where the huge difference was.

"Re-refining is better than virgin, but not by 78 percent."

That's why the way suppliers present data is so important, according to Proudfoot. "The specific words they use can change everything," he said. "You have to be really careful with what you say. It's too easy to take everything for granted."

Customers also need to understand, he said, that there's a limit to what a process oils supplier can do to lower the carbon footprint of the materials it supplies.

First, petroleum is pulled out of the ground. Then it is shipped to the refinery. From that point, Renkert takes it and distributes it through its supply hub.

"We handle it, maybe process it, and then deliver it to our customers. Our piece of the carbon footprint is very tiny," he said. "No matter how hard you work, you can't have that big of an impact."

To explain further, Proudfoot said customers want to know what the carbon footprint is "from cradle to gate."

The cradle to the refinery gate accounts for roughly 75-80 percent of the journey, he estimated, while from the refinery to the customer—where Renkert is involved—makes up the remaining, smaller share.

"Our waste stream is nearly zero," he said. "When we change tanks or clean a tank, then we take that (material) and it's re-refined. None of our product ends up going to a landfill or waste stream."

Even the samples that Renkert retains from each shipment (in case a customer questions something) never make it into the waste stream. After 90 days, those oils are put in a recycling container and sent to a re-refinery.

"We've made a lot of efforts to essentially eliminate any waste. We don't use any water in our system, so we don't have any water waste," Proudfoot said. "All our products are low volatility, so there's no air pollution waste.

"This big question about sustainability and renewability? We squeezed out all that's appropriate. There's not a lot more juice in the stone to get things out. We've made things very efficient from our perspective."