Re Sustainability has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Oil Corporation Limited to launch India’s first structured national initiative for the collection and recycling of used lubricating oil.
The partnership marks a significant milestone in building a circular ecosystem for lubricant oil management and advancing India’s transition towards a resource-efficient and low-carbon economy. This pioneering collaboration demonstrates how industry partnerships can accelerate circular resource flows, strengthen environmental governance, and build resilient energy and materials infrastructure for the future. By enabling systematic recovery and re-refining of used lubricants, the initiative will help reduce reliance on virgin crude-derived base oils while conserving natural resources and lowering foreign exchange outflows.
The collaboration will focus on establishing a dedicated Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to create a nationwide reverse logistics and collection ecosystem for used lubricating oil. The platform will aggregate used lubricants from industrial and automotive sectors and develop advanced Re-Refined Base Oil (RRBO) refining infrastructure to produce Group I and Group II+ base oils from recovered lubricants.
The MoU targets an annual collection of 100 KTA (kilotonnes per annum) of used lubricating oil. The partners will establish a state-of-the-art re-refining facility with a processing capacity of 50–100 KTA, targeted to be commissioned within the next three years. India currently generates approximately 1.3 million tonnes of used lubricating oil annually, of which only around 0.2 million tonnes is recovered through formal recycling channels.
