Lubricant additives: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Lubricant additives, such as detergents, dispersants, anti-wear agents and viscosity modifiers, are blended into engine and industrial oils. Prices follow petrochemical and metal inputs, and demand tracks vehicle fleets and oil change intervals.
No public price Lubricant additives has no public monthly price series: Sold in packages to oil blenders on contracts; no public index.What its price moves with
Additives are built on base oils and petrochemicals such as polyisobutylene and alkylphenols, so oil prices affect costs. The few large additive makers pass costs on through periodic price increases rather than monthly formulas.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Zinc dialkyldithiophosphate, or ZDDP, is the classic anti-wear additive in engine oils. Zinc is a modest part of its cost, but zinc and phosphorus are central to its chemistry and supply.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Molybdenum dithiocarbamates reduce friction in fuel-efficient engine oils. Molybdenum price swings, driven mainly by steel demand, affect these additives, though only small amounts go into each litre of finished oil, so the effect on lubricant prices is limited.
No public price for molybdenum, so the link is explained in words only.Ashless dispersants, the largest additive class by volume, are made by reacting polyisobutylene succinic anhydride with polyamines. Amine costs, which follow ethylene and ammonia, therefore feed directly into dispersant prices and into the cost of the whole additive package.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Engine oil for petrol and diesel vehicles is the largest market for lubricant additives. A growing vehicle fleet in India raises demand, while longer drain intervals reduce oil use per vehicle.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Battery EVs need no engine oil but do use specialised driveline and thermal fluids. As EVs grow, demand shifts from engine oil packages towards these smaller, more specialised fluids, a slow threat to additive volumes.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.