NLGI Member Spotlight

Royal Mfg Co. LP: A Leading Manufacturer of Lubricating Oils and Greases

Royal Mfg Co. LP., with its roots going back to 1914, is one of the top leading independent manufacturers of lubricants and greases in United States. Royal provides products to private label customers as well as branded distributors and users throughout North America and is now established with customers in over 26 foreign countries worldwide.

Royal manufactures almost all types of lubricating oils and lubricating greases with its main focus on industrial and heavy equipment applications. Royal has now four manufacturing facilities, two each at Tulsa, Oklahoma (22 acres) and San-Antonio, Texas (14 acres) for grease manufacturing and a lube blending with total combined capacity over 225,000 metric tons per year. Grease manufacturing capacity, Royal has 32 state of the art grease kettles, two Stratco Contactors, four APV Gaulin homogenizers, several Charlotte mills with up to date packaging equipment from bulk truck loading to tubs & cartridges, including several other specialty size containers.

Historic Background of Royal Mfg Co LP:

The involvement of the Mallory family, who currently owns Royal, began during the depression years. Bill Mallory Jr., President/CEO and spokesman for the company narrates; “In the late 1930’s, my mother, Lee, started working for Royal Manufacturing Company, then a small specialty grease company, serving the oil patch. The company’s owners were called to serve in World War II. Subsequently the bank took over the company and my dad, Dick Mallory, was asked to run the company. He then bought it from the bank.” In 1954, the Mallory family bought Tulsa Refined Oil Co (TROCO), founded in 1914, near downtown Tulsa and merged its operations with Royal. In 1976, The Mallory’s acquired Wright Oil Company a lube marketing company based in SanAntonio, and also merged with Royal. In 1989 a fire destroyed the main plant in Tulsa. The Tulsa plant was then rebuilt and has seen two expansions since. In 1998, another strategic diversification took place when Royal started selling base oils into Mexico and The Caribbean. In 2000, another Mallory owned company, RTW Terminal, leased 10 acres from The Port of Brownsville and built a storage terminal facility for base oils in Brownsville, Texas allowing Royal to supply its base oil customers and to bring in base oil cargos worldwide. This RTW terminal has now 37 tanks with over 250,000 barrels capacity with truck, railcar, ship and barge loading/unloading capabilities.

A Legacy of Quality and History of Performance:

For decades, Royal has manufactured high performance lubricating oils and greases catering various industrial requirements. Initially, business for Royal evolved

by servicing the oil patch, Troco serving farmers and industry around Tulsa, Wright Oil serving farming, contractors and heavy equipment users in South Texas and the combination of all three companies now serves all industries which include; agriculture, forestry, steel

mills, paper mills, mining, construction , marine , railroad, cement and concrete mill etc in almost every continent around the world.

Developing and manufacturing high performance lubricants and being ahead of the curve are not new, but an infused tradition for Royal. Some interesting stories narrated by Mr. Mallory are on product development and its nomenclature. “Royal 760 Grease” was developed in 1976 and had special advantages of anti-wear and extreme pressure that exceeded other lithium greases at that time. Another success story is on lithium complex greases, when Royal developed current lithium complex greases, its marketing team realized that we had powerful grease. Bill says when he was growing up Oldsmobile 98 reflected the power and speed in automobile industry and therefore this new powerful grease was named as “Royal 98.” Similarly, “Royal 876” lithium complex grease was developed in 1987 as a series of 6 heavy duty greases for construction and mining industry where extreme operating conditions are encountered. Royal Calcium sulfonate greases were introduced in 1986 with 5 performance goals to be achieved. Royal’s persistent efforts enabled them to achieve all 5 goals and therefore this series of high performance greases was given the name “Royal Ultra 865.”

Royal Mfg Co LP: A Private Label Manufacturer to Established “Royal” Brand:

Royal is well known in the industry for its private label manufacturing for many leading marketing brands. Royal, now thru strategic planning, is promoting its “ROYAL” brand globally while retaining the interest of its private label customers.

Over the last few years Royal has opened up offices in different parts of the world to promote its products directly or indirectly in the Middle East, South East Asia, Australia, Africa, India, China, the Caribbean Islands, North America, and South America. Royal’s export operations are supported by its Export Division located in Tulsa and with offices in Mexico, Canada, China, India, Dubai and Brazil. These offices serve both private label and branded customers overseas.

Royal plants have been accredited with ISO 9001 for its plant operations, ISO 17025* for its laboratories, NSF, HALAL and Kosher certifications for its food grade products and many other certifications and/or approvals with OEM’s, and industry organizations. Royal belongs to and has personnel involved in all major industry organizations, ILMA, NLGI, SAE, STLE, ASTM, PPC, and others. Royal’s current focus is to continue further development of high performance lubricating oils and greases in food grade, synthetic and biobased lubricants. Royal is one of the few companies to make food grade calcium sulfonate grease with highest performance levels. This grease is so robust it will allow food plant operations to use only one grease series for virtually all the lubricating grease requirements, both H-1 and H-2.

Royal has enlarged its R & D facilities for both grease and oil and this is allowing the company to provide more customer support, enabling Royal to become one of the fastest growing grease manufactures in the World.

By Dr Anoop Kumar is Director R&D and Business Development and can be reached by anoopk@royalmfg.com or 918-584-2671