“Every oil change in New Zealand has ended the same way. The old oil gets collected and then it gets burned. It’s a valuable resource and we’ve been setting fire to it. This plant means that oil can now become new oil again, right here in Pukekohe,” Knox said.
“We’ve been handling waste oil on this site since 1984 and our team has spent years getting this plant from concept to fully operational. We wanted to prove the plant and set a pathway towards optimisation.”
Glide’s Pukekohe facility, which covers about the size of a football field, can process 24 million litres of waste oil per annum.
Previously known as Waste Petroleum Combustion, Glide’s new business model is a significant change, but Knox said established access to feedstocks made it easy to justify.
Waste oil is currently collected from mechanics’ workshops, car dealerships and fleet operators across the country and burned, often as a low-cost furnace oil.
The new facility takes the same used oil and re-refines it into high-quality re-refined base oil (RRBO), ready to be blended into new lubricants and used again.
Re-refining is different from filtering used oil or burning it for heat. The oil is taken back to its base components and cleaned to a standard comparable with virgin base oil.
About 70% of waste oil is base oil that doesn’t wear out; only the additives and contaminants do, meaning it can be re-refined, with about 99% of the waste base oil able to be re-refined and reused indefinitely.
The remaining 30% consists mainly of water, light cut, middle distillate and asphalt extender. Through Glide’s refining process, these products are also recovered and repurposed – ensuring almost 100% of waste oil is reused.
Knox said this remaining material can be turned into several products, including gas oil that is used as an energy source, and a type of “gungy residue”, which he said is usable as a bituminous product.
He said every litre of re-refined base oil reduces the need for new oil refined from crude, an energy-intensive process that New Zealand relies on imports for.
That doesn’t mean it comes without a cost, however, with Knox acknowledging that for some operators it will mean a reduction in cheap, available fuel.
But he was confident many of the company’s existing clients understood that with the technology now available, a better alternative was worth the price.
The switch away from burning the material could also mean a reduction in carbon emissions by up to 100,000 tonnes a year, according to figures independently verified by Toitū Envirocare.
Glide executive director Gavin Thomas said the facility gives New Zealand a significant new tool for cutting emissions.
“For decades, New Zealand has had no choice but to burn its waste oil. Being the first facility of its kind here means we can finally change that.
“Taking potentially 100,000 tonnes of carbon out of the picture each year is a real, measurable result, and it happens simply by recycling something we were already collecting,” Thomas said.
“For workshops, dealerships and fleet operators, it’s a straightforward way to know their waste oil is being recycled, not burned. That matters to their customers, and it matters to their own emissions reporting.”
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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