SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--F&L Asia Ltd is excited to announce the recipients of this year’s F&L Asia Awards. The presentation of these prestigious honours, the only such fuel and lubricant industry awards in Asia-Pacific, is a popular component of F+L Week and highlights the exceptional performance of Asia's fuel and lubricant industry pioneers.
The awards will be presented during the F&L Asia Awards Dinner on 6 March 2019 at the Grand Hyatt Singapore. In addition to the awards ceremony, recipients will be featured in F+L Magazine, (formerly Fuels & Lubes International), the flagship publication of F&L Asia Ltd., which is available in print and digital format, as well as online and on the WeChat platform.
Satoshi Hirano of Toyota Motor Corporation is this year's recipient of the "F&L Asia Person of the Year" award. Hirano-san has had a long and distinguished career at Toyota and has been responsible for engine lubricant development and research of engine oil related phenomenon in the engine division of Toyota since 2007. Hirano-san’s influence on the engine oil test landscape is extensive. He is being recognised for his outstanding leadership role in the research and development of the relationship between new engine hardware and the resulting needs placed on engine oils.
The “F&L Asia Person of the Year” award recognizes an individual's outstanding contribution to the fuels & lubricants industry in Asia, whether he or she may be from the oil, additives, automotive or other stakeholder industry.
Before joining Toyota, Hirano-san worked for Chevron Oronite for 12 years as an engine oil formulator. In his current capacity, he regularly serves as a spokesperson for Toyota, and at times the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), during ILSAC (International Lubricants Specification Advisory Committee) and ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association) meetings.
Hirano-san identified and published initial work on the engine oil impact on Low-Speed Pre-Ignition (LSPI) in direct injection engines – leading to the formation of an industry consortium to study LSPI - and eventually to the development of the ASTM Sequence IX LSPI test. The Sequence IX is part of API SN Plus and will be part of the upcoming ILSAC GF-6 specification.
On behalf of JAMA, he worked with industry partners to develop the Sequence IVB valve train wear test to be used in ILSAC GF-6 and possibly ACEA categories, and was involved in the development and publication of the Toyota Turbo test, making the test available to the Co-ordinating European Council (CEC) to be used in future ACEA categories.
Hirano-san has worked tirelessly on the development of fuel economy data on SAE 0W-20, which was critical to convincing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve the engine oil for certification purposes. More recently, he has designed the matrix of tests demonstrating fuel economy improvements between 0W-16 over 0W-20 and Toyota sponsored all fuel economy tests. This program convinced the auto, oil and additive industries to adapt SAE 0W-16 as a part of the licensing of API SN/RC and allowed negotiating the API SN/RC 0W-16 with the U.S. EPA for approval.
Hirano-san is credited with a significant volume of technical papers and has published journal articles on engine lubricant development and related phenomenon.
The “F&L Asia Future Leaders Award” recognises individuals in our industry who demonstrate the potential for future leadership growth. The award was introduced following a request from the fuels and lubricants community to extend the categories to recognise our industry’s next generation of leaders. Nominees should have no more than 15 years of industry experience.
The inaugural award goes to Infineum’s Boon Ping Chia, who was recently promoted to the role of Infineum Asia Sales Director. Boon Ping has created strong partnerships with key industry stakeholders, such as base-stock producers, to broaden product options for lubricant marketers in Asia. He also played a vital role in establishing Infineum’s Business and Technology Centre to serve the Chinese market.
Outside of China, Boon Ping has worked strategically to ensure his Japan- and Singapore-based teams continue to serve the diverse product needs of customers throughout Asia-Pacific. He has a deep knowledge of the Asia Pacific market, customers and engine manufacturers, and possesses excellent hands-on experience of Infineum technology. A broad understanding of Infineum’s manufacturing (additive) processes, and the importance of quality and reliability, is underpinned by technical rigor and commercial acumen.
Boon Ping is a mentor to many young Infineum colleagues and ably supported the setup of the Infineum technology talent pool in Shanghai -- to attract the highest talent to the organisation. He is an “important and credible voice for Asia within the senior management team of Infineum” and the company expects him to continue to grow his influence on the Asia-Pacific lubricants and additives market with his recent promotion.
TOTAL QUARTZ EV FLUID provides specific technology for the new generation of electric drivetrain. The Total Lubrifiants product has been chosen as the 2019 “F&L Asia Product Development of the Year” to recognise the company’s ground-breaking work in the lubrication of electric and hybrid vehicles. Total Lubrifiants is the first player in the industry to provide a concrete response to the rapid developments in the automotive sector. The highly innovative TOTAL QUARTZ EV FLUID product range will help vehicle manufacturers design increasingly efficient electric and hybrid vehicles and is a worthy winner of this year’s award.
As hybrids and EVs become increasingly powerful, and their battery ranges and charging speeds improve, standard fluids are unable to maintain their robustness, heat resistance, cooling capacity and safety. TOTAL QUARTZ EV FLUID includes 11 products formulated around four specific features, dielectric properties, material protection properties, thermal properties and standard lubrication.
Accepting the “F&L Asia Product Development of the Year” Award on behalf of Total is Vice President of Automotive Lubricants, Thierry Gourault. Gourault is based in Singapore and responsible for worldwide automotive lubricants activity. He joined Total in 1989 and has previously held positions in Paris as Total’s VP for France, and as CEO of S-Oil Total Lubricants in South Korea.
We are also delighted to recognise the contribution of Gary M. Parsons not only to F&L Asia, but to the industry at large, with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Parsons retired from Chevron Oronite on 31 July 2018 following 37 years of outstanding service. During his career, he has been involved in fuels research, consumer and commercial lubricants, product development, strategic account management and business development with assignments in North America, Europe and Asia.
For the past 13 years, he has held the important role of Global OEM and Industry Liaison Manager – leading industry representation across many industry associations and standards organisations including ASTM, SAE, ACC, STLE, CEC, CRC, ATC, AAA, JASO and JALOS.
For more information on attending the F&L Asia Awards please visit http://fuelsandlubes.com/flweek/.
ABOUT F+L WEEK
F+L Week is the premier fuels, lubricants, additives and base oils conference in Asia-Pacific, with
2019 marking the 25th year of this popular event. F+L Week is the industry’s must-attend annual event in Asia and the only annual conference in Asia-Pacific with a high level of commercial, i.e., non-academic, technical content on the subject of transport fuels, lubricants, base oils and additives.
Registration for the conference is now open. To register, visit http://fuelsandlubes.com/flweek/
ABOUT F&L ASIA
F&L Asia Ltd. has been providing world-class fuel and lubricant industry news and events since 1995.
Unparalleled thought leadership, stringent content quality standards and uncompromising journalism (gathering facts directly from the frontline, including from its permanent bases at the heart of the strategic Asian region) are some of F&L Asia’s core strengths and the reason why it retains an unchallenged “first with the latest” position. With its digital first strategy, F&L Asia has a diverse portfolio of unique and powerful lead-generation tools which allow advertisers and sponsors to increase their regional, as well as global, brand awareness, and establish, promote and nurture their fluid industry connections within this tight-knit community.
