Group III base oil was changing hands at USD 11.40 per gallon in July, against USD 3.40 in January before the Gulf conflict began — a rise of 235%, and the steepest of any American Petroleum Institute (API) base oil group. The lubricant industry’s answer to that, a main-stage panel at the Asian Lubricant Exhibition (ALE) 2026 heard on 9 September, has been less about pricing than about finding molecules, moving them and telling customers the truth about both. Moderating the session, titled “How Asia’s lubricants industry responded to supply chain shocks,” Steve Puckett, chairman of Tri-Zen International and a founding director of the Asian Lubricants Industry Association (ALIA), opened with a market picture drawn largely from third-party data. More than 80 major energy facilities have been hit or severely damaged since the conflict began, more than 40 of them in its first few weeks, Puckett said. When he last addressed the subject in March 2026, the count was 43. On top of the physical damage, a number of Gulf facilities have declared force majeure and shut down for safety reasons. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects fully restoring regional energy production to take at least two years and possibly longer after the fighting subsides, constrained less by money than by the availability of equipment, engineering and contracting resources, he said. Puckett put…

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