Top Grease Manufacturers 2026: Global Brands and Chinese Producers Compared

The best-known grease manufacturers are the lubricant businesses of the large energy companies (ExxonMobil, Shell, BP Castrol, Chevron, TotalEnergies, Sinopec and PetroChina), the specialist lubricant makers FUCHS and Klüber, and independent Chinese producers such as Anhui Zhongtian Petrochemical. This page compares ten of them by headquarters and grease brands, and adds what changed in the grease market in 2025 and 2026.

It is not a ranking. No public source publishes grease output by company, so the manufacturers below are grouped by region rather than ordered by size. Last updated: October 2026.

The grease market in 2026: more money, fewer tonnes

Market-research firms value the global grease market at roughly USD 6 billion a year, but their figures differ because each one defines the market differently. Treat any single number as one estimate, not a measurement.

Production volume tells a different story. The National Lubricating Grease Institute’s survey of 2024 output, reported by Lubes’n’Greases in July 2025, found that global grease production fell for the tenth year in a row. China remained the largest producing country even though its reported output dropped sharply. By thickener, calcium sulfonate greases gained ground in North America, China and Europe, simple and complex lithium greases kept losing share, and polyurea slipped slightly.

Rising value alongside falling tonnage usually means a change in mix: buyers are paying more per kilogram for complex, calcium sulfonate and synthetic greases, while less commodity lithium grease is made. For a buyer, that makes a supplier’s thickener range at least as important as its size.

Ten grease manufacturers compared

International grease manufacturers

ExxonMobil (Mobil)

ExxonMobil sells its greases under the Mobil name. The Mobilgrease XHP family is the one most buyers meet first: Mobilgrease XHP 222 is an NLGI 2 lithium complex grease for industrial, marine, chassis and farm equipment. If a specification calls for molybdenum disulfide, the grade to ask for is XHP 222 Special, which adds 0.75% MoS₂ for pivots, king pins and other joints that lose their oil film. The two are often confused on purchase orders.

Shell

Shell’s grease range is Gadus. In September 2026 Shell started production at a grease plant in Marunda, Bekasi, Indonesia, with capacity of up to 12,000 tonnes a year, next to its existing lubricant blending plant there. For buyers in Southeast Asia this means more locally made Gadus product and less reliance on imports.

BP Castrol

Castrol markets industrial and vehicle greases mainly under two names. Spheerol is the multipurpose and heavy-duty line, including the Spheerol EPL range and the moly-fortified Spheerol LMM. Tribol is the specialty line, which includes Tribol Wind greases for wind turbines.

Chevron

Chevron’s main grease names are Black Pearl, Ulti-Plex and Delo. Black Pearl Grease EP is a multipurpose polyurea grease; Ulti-Plex is a lithium complex extreme-pressure range; Delo covers heavy-duty fleet greases. Chevron has renamed or merged several of these products in recent years (some Ulti-Plex synthetics now appear as Starplex in its 2023 grease programme), so match old product names to current data sheets before reordering. Polyurea grades from Mobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, SKF and Zhongtian are compared in our polyurea grease manufacturers guide.

FUCHS

FUCHS was founded in Mannheim, Germany, in 1931 and describes itself as the world’s largest independent lubricant manufacturer, meaning it is not part of an oil company. Its greases are sold under the RENOLIT name, alongside a catalogue of more than 10,000 lubricant products.

TotalEnergies

TotalEnergies is the clearest example of the shift toward calcium sulfonate in the NLGI data. Its CERAN family is built on calcium sulfonate complex thickeners: CERAN XM 460 is a multipurpose, water-resistant extreme-pressure grease, and CERAN HRM 460 is designed for hot-rolling mills. Several CERAN grades are marketed as free of lead and other harmful heavy metals.

Klüber Lubrication

Klüber Lubrication, part of Germany’s Freudenberg group, concentrates on specialty lubricants rather than volume grease. It is one of the names food and pharmaceutical plants look for, with NSF H1 food-grade greases sold as Klübersynth UH1 and Klüberfood NH1.

Chinese grease manufacturers

China is still the world’s largest grease-producing country by volume, according to the NLGI survey above. Two of its largest lubricant suppliers belong to the state energy groups; the rest of the market is made up of independent producers of very different sizes, which is why checking documents matters more when buying from China.

Sinopec (Great Wall)

Great Wall is the lubricant brand of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec). It supplies automotive and industrial greases across China and through Sinopec’s overseas lubricant businesses.

PetroChina (Kunlun)

Kunlun is the lubricant brand of PetroChina, part of the China National Petroleum Corporation group. Like Great Wall, it covers vehicle and industrial greases and is a common reference brand in Chinese tenders.

Anhui Zhongtian Petrochemical

Disclosure: this page is published by Zhongtian. Anhui Zhongtian Petrochemical was founded in 1998 in Susong, Anhui Province, and sells greases under the Fumantian brand, a China Well-Known Trademark. Its product catalogue states an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes of lubricating grease, separate from about 200,000 tonnes of lubricating oil, and the company exports to more than 100 countries and regions.

The grease range covers lithium, lithium complex, polyurea, aluminium complex, bentonite, molybdenum disulfide and calcium sulfonate complex greases. Two details can be checked independently: the company’s ISO 9001:2015 certificate (registration number 62825Q9372R0S, valid to April 2028, issued by Zhongtian Hongtu International Certification) can be looked up in the certification database of China’s Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA), and the group’s testing company holds CMA and CNAS accreditation. Buyers shortlisting a Chinese supplier can browse Zhongtian’s lubricating grease range and request technical data sheets or samples for the grades they need.

How to compare grease manufacturers before you buy

A famous name does not tell you whether a specific grease suits your equipment. These checks apply to every supplier on this page, including us.

• Ask for the product data sheet and a batch certificate of analysis for the exact grade, not a brochure for the range.
• Compare like with like. Dropping point should be measured by the same method on both sheets (ASTM D2265; the older ASTM D566 was withdrawn in 2023).
• Check OEM approvals product by product. An approval held by one grease does not extend to the rest of the brand.
• Confirm the thickener before switching. Some thickeners do not mix safely; see our grease compatibility chart and the notes on changing over to calcium sulfonate complex grease.
• Verify certificate numbers with the issuing body rather than accepting a scanned copy.

For lubricants as a whole rather than grease, see our ranking of the top 10 lubricant manufacturers, which is based on Kline market-share data. Comparing manufacturers is only half of the job; the other half is verification, which our lubricants sourcing guide covers step by step.

Sources

• Lubes’n’Greases, “Global Grease Production Hits Decade of Decline” (NLGI 2024 production survey), July 2025
• SNS Insider greases market release, April 2025
• Maximize Market Research, global grease market
• Shell: production starts at Indonesian grease plant, September 2026
• Manufacturer product pages linked in each profile above
• Anhui Zhongtian Petrochemical product catalogue and ISO 9001:2015 certificate