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Buying Lubricating Oil for Best Operating Results ference between buying oil and buying lubrication. The purchase can be either a rather tubby looking steel drum containing 50 to 55 gal- lons of petroleum derivative at so much a gallon, or it can be proper lu- brication—a combination of an always uniform product intelligently designed for the unit on which it is to go, avail- able wherever and whenever the ship may need it, backed and serviced con- stantly by competent lubrication engi- neers. How can the purchaser tell this dif- ference? There was at one time an expression current which is dying a deserved death—‘Oil is oil”. That is just as intelligent as saying “shoes are shoes” or “clothes are clothes,” or “cars are cars.” It was usually de- fended by the statement that it all came out of the ground. So does iron ore, later refined to steel. Butter spreaders and razors are both made from steel today—they both “come out of the ground”’—but a butter spreader gives a mighty poor shave. Teens is a difference, a vast dif- How Not To Buy Oil It cannot be too strongly emphasized that there are two ways the purchaser can not tell the difference—price per gallon—and _ so-called specifications. The sad fallacy of the former will be dealt with later. In the case of the latter, just what are specifications? Vis- cosity. Flash Point. Fire Point. Specific gravity. Color, etc. These physical char- acteristics of the oil are the refinery’s method of checking the uniformity of the product, but they are absolutely not a measure of the correctness or value of an oil from the purchaser’s viewpoint! If you knew the crudes from which the oil is made and the methods and care of the refining it received, these characteristics might mean something. Not knowing this, they are actually misleading. If one manufacturer can make for you a number of oils of varying price values, low to high, with the same “specifica- tions,” can there be any possible con- tention that they represent a guide to the buyer? How to Determine Real Quality _.Is there any way in which the har- rassed buyer of today seeking every possible cost cut, can definitely deter- mine how to get the most lubrication for his money? There is. ‘First of all it is unfair and unsound to ask the executive assigned to pur- chases to make the decision unaided. 34 He should be a member of a commit- tee of two—the other member being the operating or superintending engi- neer. It has been said that this is merely adding another “opinion” to con- fuse the issue. At that, it is a sound, well informed opinion, backed by the experience of the chief engineers of the ships: Why should not the man who has to keep the ships on their schedules and the men who live day and night with the engines themselves be consulted? But it should not be a matter of “opinion.” Driving directly at the heart of the whole matter, what is the one certain and correct indicator of the proper oil to buy? - The over all cost of the ship operation, per ship mile. Is this an involved matter of charts and records? It is not. It is a simple matter of record which any su- perintending engineer has, or can read- ily compile. 1. The amount of oil consumed per ship mile times its cost per gallon. © 2. The cost of repairs and replace-_ ments per ship mile. 3. The amount of wear on bearings, etc., calibrated and recorded per ship mile times the eventual cost of replacement or repair. 4. And in some cases where ship speed is a premium, a credit or debit for the engines’ ability to turn up without hot bearings or undue oil consumption. Could anything be simpler? Cer- tainly it is less involved than a haze of partially understood specifications. Certainly it is more desirable than the uneasy feeling that follows price buy- ing. And nine times out of ten, item number one will give the price-per-gal- lon-buyer the shock of his life. Arriving at Operating Results The purchaser may argue that this takes time to build up. That is one of the basic reasons why it is reliable. Take two or three established marine brands of oil and split the fleet up on them. Be certain that the oil is used as recommended by the supplier and in the quantities he recommends. Let the ship mile record build up for a few months or a year. Average the ships on each brand and compare them. The answer must be the correct one. You know something about oil then that cannot be offset by sales arguments. Perhaps there are two other factors you may wish to add to the list, very important factors. The oil you select must be available at all ports of call— and uniform in every port. Your ship MARINE REVIEW—February, 1932 mile record will reflect this, too. The company from which you buy this oil must have a competent and trained staff of lubrication specialists (it’s a science in itself that you cannot ex- pect your busy chief engineer to mas- ter) ready to serve you as consultants. You will be surprised at the amount of money these men can save you with suggestions gathered from their experi- ence on all types of ships under all flags. Just by way of emphasis, there is at this moment an important ship on an important run out of New York, and she is operating on an improper lubri- cant bought at the lowest price per gallon quoted to the purchasing “de- partment of her company. The “spe- cifications” were in line. She is in hard service and despite the efforts of the chief engineer not to push the ves- sel unduly, wear is taking place at a noticeably dangerous rate. Not many months from now there will be a heavy repair bili out of all proportion to the small difference in cost of the oils in- volved. Her gear set cost approxi- mate $200,000 and the difference in price of an oil that would insure the safety of this unit and the oil she is using is only $200 a year. Where Genuine Service Counts A foreign owner employed a firm of consulting engineers in New York to care for his ships on this side. Trouble developed on one of them— plenty of trouble. In desperation they turned to a well known oil company with the statement that perhaps it was a lubrication problem for a lubricating specialist. It took two days to reach the ship in an inaccessible Canadian port and it took two hours to find the seat of the trouble and its remedy. That confidence and assurance in the supplier, that ready and intelligent as- sistance is not in a tubby steel drum and fifty gallons of oil at a price per gallon, and it saved the owner the cost of his whole year’s oil bill. Forget the price per gallon and re- member the over all cost per ship mile. Forget the deceptive specifications and put in their place the ship mile record. Listen to your operating men and the men who live with the equip- ment. Do that and the man doesn’t live that can sell you anything but the proper and most economical lubrica- tion for’ your ships! Less Passenger Trade A decline of more than 350,000 in the number of passengers carried by the North Atlantic steamship lines operating between United States and Canadian ports and Hurope outside of the Mediterranean is shown by the figures of the North Atlantic confer- ence for the period from Jan. 2 to Dec. 24, 1931. Similar losses were shown in the Mediterranean west- bound traffic.