In this episode of The Dirt, we talk about the next generation of heavy-duty diesel-engine oil, which is currently under development.
Shawn Whitacre, Chevron senior staff engineer for engine oil technology, explains the need for the new oil category, currently known as PC-12 and what it will mean for contractors and operators. (“PC” stands for “proposed category.”)
The category’s development, governed by the American Petroleum Institute, is being driven by the higher demand placed on diesel engines by emissions regulations.
To find out more about PC-12 and what it means for your business and construction equipment, check out the latest episode of The Dirt.
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In This Episode:
00:00 - Intro: A New Engine Oil Category
00:40 - What Is PC-12?
01:15 - Why Do API Categories Matter?
02:12 - Why Do We Need New Engine Oil Categories?
04:29 - Will New Engine Oils Be Compatible with Older Equipment?
07:13 - Viscosity vs. Oil Category
08:00 - When Will PC-12 Become a Real Category?
09:53 - What Will PC-12 Be Named?
11:05 - Final Thoughts and Overview
Video transcript:
Bryan Furnace:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Equipment World. You're watching The Dirt. I'm your host Bryan, and today we're here to talk about engine oils, specifically we're here to talk about engine oil categories. Did you even know engine oil categories were a thing because I didn't up until we started this interview, but they are, and there's a new one coming and what does that mean to us as contractors? Why should we even care about this conversation? Well, Shawn Whitacre is here from Chevron to talk exactly about that topic, why we in the dirt industry should be aware of this new product category coming out.
PC 12, this is one of these figures and number things that you throw around as the oil industry that dumb dirt guys like myself kind of go, "What are you talking about?" Can you kind of at a high level, just give us an idea of what these oil categories are?
Shawn Whitacre:
So PC 12 stands for proposed category 12, and we call it a proposed category when it's in development, but ultimately we're envisioning that this will become the next kind of generation of the API specifications that govern heavy duty engine oil performance right now.
Bryan:
Am I as a dirt contractor ever really going to be focused on what API category of oil I'm getting, or am I really just concerned with what my manufacturer says needs to go in my machine?
Shawn Whitacre:
There's two types of specifications, and so there's industry specifications and that's really in the North America market defined by the API specifications and it's actually got a prop today so if you look on the back of a bottle, you can see the little donut there on the back of the bottle. When you look there, that's going to define the API category, the service category, that the particular product meets. That's sort of the base level of performance in most cases. There're also OEM specifications and oftentimes those build upon the industry specifications and ultimately, and if you've got a piece of hardware, you're going to want to understand that you've got a product that meets the right API specification, but then also meets the prevailing OEM standard that applies to your particular piece of hardware.
Bryan:
Gotcha. Now I have to ask again as the dumb dirt guy, if we have these categories that are working fine for us, why go through all of the rigamarole to create new categories? What's the purpose behind this whole proposed category?
Shawn Whitacre:
That's a really good question, and I've been doing this since the mid-nineties and one of the things that has continued to drive improvements in oil quality have been the incremental changes to emission regulations and that's really no different this time around. This has been on an every four to as long as 10 year cycle where new heavy duty emission regulations oftentimes first applies to the on highway market, but later on catches up to the non-road segment in which engine designs change, fuel injection systems change, operating pressures change, fuels change, and then more recently, the addition of emission control systems, which has brought new requirements to engine oils and put constraints on the kinds of things that we can put in products. Those are the same motivating factors that are driving this new category.
There's actually another set of emission regulations which have been proposed, and that would go into effect in 2027, which will require reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions and would also prolong the expected useful life of emission control systems. Now in reality, those will only first apply to the on-road segment, but as we've seen time and again, eventually...
