India became the first market to witness the launch of the new Tellus range of hydraulic oils from Shell Lubricants.

When Shell Lubricants, the global market share leader in finished lubricants, launched Shell Tellus S2 MX and Shell Tellus S2 VX – ‘The Future of Hydraulic Oils’ recently, it chose India to make the first announcement, before unveiling the new products across Singapore, Thailand, China, S Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, France and other markets. While this indicates the importance of a growing market, it also factors in the harsh environment in which most of the equipment that consume these oils, operates in a tropical country.

The Shell Tellus range of hydraulic oils have been developed to enable equipment operators to select the fluid that will help to deliver optimum value to their operations through: wear protection, long fluid life, and system efficiency. Backed by years of extensive R&D, Shell Tellus S2 MX and Shell Tellus S2 VX are the upgraded formulations of the Shell Tellus S2 M and S2 V hydraulic fluids respectively. For customers, this amounts to more reliable and efficient equipment operation, which can help reduce unplanned downtime, lower maintenance costs, and contribute to savings in total cost of ownership (TCO).

Speaking about the latest offerings, Hans Gerdes, Shell Tellus Brand Manager, said, “As a global leader in hydraulic oils, we take great pride in working closely with the leading OEMs, and developing products to fit their needs. Changes to equipment technology and operating conditions in recent years have placed increasing demands on the hydraulic oil. For example, demand for increased power output means equipment is often operating under higher loads and temperatures, which places increased stress on the hydraulic oil. The upgraded formulations of Shell Tellus S2 hydraulic oils deliver dramatically improved performance over the previous generation.”

“At Shell Lubricants, we work closely with OEMs, academic groups and industry bodies to understand the challenges faced by our customers. With this understanding, we invest in R&D of products that can help customers to reduce ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ of their equipment, by upgrading their lubrication. Over the past decade, we have worked rigorously on upgrading our range of hydraulic oils to ensure reduced equipment downtime, lower maintenance costs, and improved equipment productivity,” added Akhil Jha, Vice President Technical, Shell Lubricants India.

Speaking on the occasion, Vinay Bansod, Chief Technical Officer, Windsor Machines Ltd, a global plastics processing machinery manufacturer based and one of the few Indian companies engaged in manufacturing injection moulding, pipe extrusion and blown film machineries under one roof, stressed on the importance of hydraulic oil – the lifeline of machines. With the ever-increasing quest for machines with a smaller footprint with reduced pump and reservoir sizes, the stress on hydraulic oil increases too, putting consequent demands on cooling as well as filtration. Windsor, like many other OEMs, works with engineers from Shell Lubricants in this quest for smooth and trouble free performance of their machines.

Another special invitee at this launch, M P Saju – R&D Head, Toshiba Machine (Chennai) Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Toshiba – Japan, and a leading high-end plastics injection moulding machines and auxiliary equipment manufacturer in India, narrated his experience of dealing with pump failures. During the year 2005 the company faced a spate of pump failures in its injection moulding machines. When its own internal efforts failed to solve the problem, they approached Shell Lubricants. It became clear that the problem was with hydraulic oil, which was at that point of time not given adequate importance. With a proper grade of Shell recommended oil, the failure of pumps was reduced drastically, improving efficiency as well as bringing down idle time of the machines. In the process, confirming what is generally believed – hydraulic oil is like blood for machines.

Not only are the new hydraulic oils are fully compatible with previous generation Shell Tellus S2 hydraulic oil and most other mineral oil based fluids in the market, but these are also approved by all major pump manufacturer OEMs, including Bosch Rexroth (for Shell Tellus S2 MX only), Parker Denison, and Eaton Vickers. From construction of massive tunnels for the Beijing metro, to helping one of the largest diggers in the world like Komatsu, the Shell Tellus range has also been used in aiding two robotic arms – ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’; to carry out complicated processes on the Ferrari’s engine production line, among others.