Interview with Conference Speaker Patrick McDougall from Chevron Oronite

Tuesday, 5 December 2023

We are pleased to share with you an interview with Patrick McDougall from Chevron Oronite. Patrick will be speaking at Lubricant Expo North America’s Free-to-Attend Conference. 

Q1) Can you tell us about your role at Chevron? What excites you / keeps you up at night?

I am currently the Lower Carbon Strategy Manager for Chevron Oronite, a speciality chemical division of Chevron that primarily manufactures fuel and lubricant additives. I have spent all of my career in the lubricant additive business, starting as a Chemist developing new anti-wear chemistry followed by a number of roles in chemical business development. From early on in my career, I have held an interest in environmental sustainability related to the chemical industry. Several years ago, I was given an opportunity to lead our technical developments in lower carbon chemistry which has now progressed to a full-time position devoted to advancing these efforts across the Chemicals business. It excites me to see that in the span of a few short years, the global chemical industry has started to answer the call to address climate change-related risks through sustainability coalitions, carbon footprinting guidance, and promoting GHG reduction targets.

 

Q2) You are a panellist in the session on reducing emissions across the supply chain. What challenges is the supply chain facing in measuring and accounting for carbon emissions?

While there has been tremendous progress over the last few years with regards to carbon emissions accounting at the product level (e.g. carbon footprinting) in the chemical and additive industries, there are many challenges that need to be addressed before these values can start influencing business decisions. For us in particular, about 70-80% of our carbon footprint emissions are attributed to our purchased raw materials. Therefore, it is critically important that we have high quality data for these materials that is an accurate reflection of their carbon intensity. Leading secondary databases have helped bridge the gap while more primary supplier data becomes available, but even these databases are often limited to commodity-type chemicals. There are many opportunities to continue to build a collaborative database of emission factors across the chemical sector.

 

Q3) In what way can lubricants and additives help OEMs and Tier 1s reduce their carbon emissions?

Lubricants and lubricant additives can offer end-user benefits with regards to lower carbon emissions. Historically speaking, lubricants have helped to improve fuel economy, increase engine durability, and enable more efficient engine designs. These efforts continue today as OEMs continue to strive for higher efficiency from both the lubricant and engines. Our industry is also now entering a period of unprecedented change that is driving new innovation in lubricant technology. This includes new lubricants to support emerging fuels like hydrogen, biofuels, and ammonia and new hardware such as hybrids, BEVs, and hydrogen ICE.  From helping to improve fuel economy to enabling the introduction of new hardware, lubricants can play a role in the transition to lower carbon mobility.

 

Q4) What are you hoping to see at Lubricant Expo North America?

It has been very encouraging to see topics like carbon accounting and sustainability in the lubricants industry start to become important themes at lubricant conferences. Businesses all across the world are seeing a similar shift as climate change-related risks become more widely recognized by society. I am hoping to connect with many others across our industry that share a similar passion for responsibly producing our products and furthering the benefits they can bring to a lower carbon world.