Following award success, Exol is expanding sites and continuing to deliver high quality products worldwide
Committed to complete quality management, from design through to distribution and customer care, Exol Lubricants (Exol) delivers a comprehensive range of lubricants and associated products across the globe. With an outstanding reputation for providing high-quality products, service and support, Exol has continued to grow since it was formed in 1984 and this incredible success has led to a recent prestigious King’s Award 2025 for International Trade.
Managing Director, Steve Everitt, initially joined Exol as an accountant in 1990, before the business began to develop further and enter different markets. He tells Manufacturing Today about the strategy behind its growth over the last four decades and reveals more about recent technologies, products and processes: “When the company first began 42 years ago, it focused primarily on industrial lubricants. After I joined the company, it started to expand into the automotive sector. Presently, we own two sites – a blending plant in Rotherham and our head office in Wednesbury, which is where we pack and distribute all our products. We manufacture lubricants for all industries, including automotive, industrial and agricultural – everything you can think of that involves an engine or a moving part! Most of our products are driven by OEM manufacturers, for example Ford or Vauxhall, and that’s generally where a new product will develop from, one that is specific for a new engine, such as our latest new specification developed for Stellantis.”
Steve explains that Exol passionately promotes the ‘Made in England’ aspect of the business – which signifies the quality of a product – and many customers are looking to buy quality products from England. “I think this is primarily how we’ve managed to grow in overseas markets,” he continues. “We were delighted to win the King’s Award for International Trade in 2025 and that achievement was largely due to demand for Exol branded products in those markets. Our plan is to develop further into Asia and Africa, markets we already have some loyal distributors in, as they value a Made in England lubricant. The next challenge is to find additional distributors to partner with in the free countries that would work well alongside our existing business. Once we find the right partners, we can really start to show them the benefits of working with Exol.”
New Technologies
Alongside winning awards and expanding geographically, Exol also invests heavily in implementing new technologies within its facilities. Over the last few years, this has included its pigging line in Rotherham, Yorkshire, a £1.2 million investment in a state-of-the-art automated liquid transfer system, delivered to reduce waste product lost during the blending process. Additionally, the company installed new ‘Bag in the Box’ packaging in January with the purpose also being to cut waste. “Selling these boxes with the plastic bag inside means that our customers can take them on site, if they’re repairing a hydraulic hose on a JCB, for example, and then they can remove the bag and flatten the box once they’ve finished with the product. This obviously reduces a significant amount of waste and saves a lot of space in the delivery vehicles.” Reducing waste and adapting processes to become more sustainable is an important part of the company’s strategy. Not only is its Rotherham plant a green solution, but Exol also moves oil across the county via its barge, which is the most environmentally friendly fleet, and has won numerous environmental awards for this initiative, alongside the use of solar panels onsite at its head office in Wednesbury, West Midlands, to cut carbon emissions and save energy costs.
Redevelopment of its five-acre Wednesbury site is ongoing, following a £5 million investment and purchase of an adjacent site. Planning permission for the additional two acres has been approved and Exol is in the process of building more warehouses, offices and parking spaces, with the project due to complete in spring 2027 and increase the company’s capacity by approximately 40-to-50 percent.
Heading into 2026, Steve elaborates on the business’ priorities for the upcoming year: “The build of the new site is huge for us,” he highlights. “It can create various challenges within your current site when you start developing a new one. We’ve demolished a lot of storage warehouses already, so managing all those processes for 2026 is going to be a main focus. We’re also installing four new blending vessels at our Rotherham blending plant alongside the current six, which we’ll be refurbishing while the new vessels are online, eventually taking the capacity up to ten, enabling the site to blend more. The ‘bag in the box’ packaging will be up and running this year and furthermore, we’re updating our IT system to Business Central, which we believe will bring substantial benefits. Putting in a new computer system isn’t usually straightforward, so we’ll be prioritizing that to make sure it’s completely functional for the beginning of 2027, allowing us to move to the next level of growth for the business.
“Continued growth for Exol is obviously high on the agenda over the next three-to-five years,” he ends. “Each year, we tend to grow up to three or four percent, which is promising. Hopefully, we will have grown even further in five years’ time with the increased capacity that we’re incorporating in 2026, along with other developments and strategies. Thus, it’s an exciting time and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds.”