The global lubricant market in the past 10 years has undergone dramatic changes due to industry consolidation. The industry has witnessed overall flat demand, sharp shifts in consumption, increased competition and greater pressure on profits. World lubricants demand has remained flat around 36 million ton/year since 2007.

Global Demand of Lubricant, million Ton/ Year

The Asia-Pacific region together with the Rest of the World (ROW) accounted for little more than 35% of global volume in 2007 and at 2017 makes more than 43% of the total volume, as a result of growing industrialization and motorization and consequently higher consumption.
The mature markets Western Europe and North America experienced a continuous move to the use of higher quality lubricants with longer oil drain intervals and this produced lower consumption, as a result of these efficiencies. Europe and the Americas lost in equal relative terms, what Asia-Pacific and the ROW gained with regard to lube volume consumption.
Today, the Asia-Pacific region, sharing 43% of global demand, consumes twice the lubes per annum than North America does, with a share of about 18%. Even more interesting was the fact, that North America‘s lube consumption per capita of 20kg was still twice as much as Western Europe‘s 10kg, which of course was the result of a quantity vs. quality issue.
Overall, the world consumed 5kg of lubricants per-capita in 2011, in spite of the aforementioned above-average per capita consuming regions, because Asia-Pacific and Africa, who represent nearly half of the global lube market, still have a per-capita demand of below 5kg.

Comparing Regional Lubricant Demand between 2007 & 2017