Wu Hanling Portrait of a self-made man

摘要

IN 2006, WU FOUNDED HDS, WITHOUT any backers, to produce Group II lubricating base oils. The company was competing with the likes of Chinese oil giants Sinopec and PetroChina and South Korean conglomerates SK and S-Oil, who dominated the high-end base oil market segment in China. Located in the southeastern coastal province of Hainan, HDS has worked its way up the ranks to its current 300,000-ton per annum capacity, of which 240,000 tons are Group II base oils. To put that number in perspective, the three government-owned refineries, PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC, have a combined annual capacity of 1.7 million tons of Group II base oils.