Finol Oil has grown over the last few years and was one of the very few businesses that managed to not only survive the recession, but grow its business. The business has doubled since the recession. It managed this by taking some smart business decisions and using the some 200 years of combined staff experience in the lubricants industry. Finol is currently celebrating 40 years in business in Ireland and has marked this milestone with a complete re-brand across the range.

Current managing director Sean Holland has been with the company for 31 of these years and knows his business and the lubricant business inside out. Having started out as a store assistant, there is no part of the business that Sean doesn’t know. He is very positive about the business and sees plant lubrication as areas where the business can grow.

Achievements

Currently Finol supplies about 20% of their lubricants to the agricultural sector in Ireland and about 13% to the plant market. In terms of the overall market, it is the second largest supplier of lubricants in Ireland and the top of the heap of the world’s big hitters in this country. The company supplies supply French oil giant Total’s products to the Irish market. Total is currently the fourth largest oil company on the world and has seven different production plants in Europe.

Fuel-efficient lubricants

Sean sees the use of fuel-efficient lubricants as the future for agricultural machinery as they reduce the wear on machines at the same time as improving efficiency. The drain intervals are extended by up to 50% depending on manufacturers specifications. This alone could lead to savings and, combined with the improvement of working efficiency, can make good financial sense for agricultural operators. Finol has a calculator on its website where you can input the parameter of the machines being used and it will calculate the possible savings that can be gained from using fuel-efficient lubricants in your machines.

ANAC

Another service that Finol offers is ANAC (oil analysis). When oil is being changed from machinery it is analysed to check for any sign of wear in components – whether it is an engine or a hydraulic system. The analysis can pick up many differing signs of wear from the system, from actual pieces of worn metal to traces of chemical reaction that occur when bearings or other moving parts are beginning to wear. Finol carry out all of these test using Total’s laboratories. This gives 30-plus years of experience to call on and over 3m previous samples to compare and contrast against.

One thing that Sean said was that having the original make-up of the oil before it was used gives a far better analysis of the oil and with Total’s massive back catalogue of testing, it gives the best opportunity to assess the machine wear before it becomes an expensive problem. Sean has had customers in the recent past who have had oil analysis done on machines before they were to be sold. They found that being able to vouch for the health of certain systems and components made it far easier and more profitable to sell healthy machines.

Finol has eight full-time technical sale people on the road in Ireland. These are backed up by a total of 24 staff currently, with four more in the pipeline. Distribution is carried out by its own fleet of four trucks. In its premises in Dublin it carries about one million litres of lubricants in stock. These are split among the 1,700 products that it carries. These are all stored in a 20,000ft2 storage facility and a 17,000ft2 yard area.

Finol have a network of 10 major distributors spaced evenly around the country, each of these distributors has a great understanding of the products and along with the experience that is obviously visible in Sean and his team they give customers the best possible service.