Listen, listen, listen.

Shell has a plant in Qatar called the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids facility. The only company in the world to begin large-scale production of base oils from natural gas.

Why Qatar?
They have more NG than crude; so there.

Whats a base oil?
All engine oil manufacturers start with a base oil from ExxonMobil. Why? Only Exxon has the scale to be able to supply base oil. So all the tiny manufacturers buy base oil and then add additives to make their proprietary blend; i.e. Prince, StopOil, etc.
Base oils are made from derivatives of crude oil. Derivatives are cracked and recombined molecularly which is where the word 'synthetic' comes from; as the reconstituted oil bears almost no molecular relation to crude oil.

So Shell Pearl??
Shell is creating synthetic base oil from natural gas derivatives; which is a cleaner fossil fuel with much less contaminants as its a gas. The resultant reconstituted base oil has much lower foreign particles than synthetics from a crude base.

So....
A much cleaner oil than one derived from crude oil.
Forget about UOA. Shell's PurePlus (brand name) engine oils are like distilled vs mineral water. Mineral water tastes great; but distilled water has zero, and I mean zero, suspended solids. Mineral water has around 60-80 ppm solids (0.06-8 g/L) but there is a difference in taste right?

And then....
You just can't beat it; scientifically. PurePlus just launched last week by SHell Malaysia. Pennzoil is owned by Shell so they might bring it in soon. But in the mean time; nothing is gonna beat that stuff.

*I do not work for Shell; I just like scientifically solid arguments

P.S Some facts that you might not have heard.
- Back in the day, Formula ONe's 12 teams, 11 supplied by ExxonMobil (even those with other oil companies as sponsor). Each team has a fuel engineer with a 10*12ft spectrometer which can tell the engineer who drove the car after each lap, based on oil analysis. The only company besides Mobil? Shell (you can guess the team).
- So what about F1? True cutting-edge auto tech cuts it teeth in F1. To put it simply, only Castrol, Shell, Exxon have the resources to be able to research their oils from the base oil upwards. Almost all other companies just buy off-the-shelf (Exxon) base oil to blend with additives.

Its the same Shell Helix Ultra - Pennzoil is Shell's North American brand.

Anyhow: I got this from Tesco - after years of pondering about buying Tesco's Helix Ultra....

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email.

Regarding your below mentioned enquiry, kindly be informed that Tesco Shell Oil is not manufactured in Malaysia and hence Shell Malaysia will not be liable for any occurrence if you were to purchase it. Our Shell lubricants are only sold at our retail stations or any authorized shell dealer/workshop.

so........yea no Shell Engine Warranty etc etc

But, Shell only operates one GTL gas-to-liquid plant worldwide which produces Pureplus lubricants, so there can't be any doubt its the same Helix Ultra Tesco is selling for RM160 on Lazada, vs RM229 at Shell. But damn, Tesco's bottles come with no foil seal!

This should be a pinned post. Look at approved specs only.

Shell Helix HX-5 (sorry its HX-7) is a semi-syn that has MB229.3, VW 502/505. Many 'fully-syn' on the market sell for RM200++ with NO CERTIFICATION. So yes, the RM120 HX5 semi is actually better than many fully-syns on the market.

Added:
Why? Manufacturer specs are far and away harder to pass than API SN. Relatively few oils are able to pass MB 229.3 - see https://bevo.mercedes-benz.com/bevolisten/229.3_en.html even fewer for https://bevo.mercedes-benz.com/bevolisten/229.5_en.html

229.3 is sufficient for normal aspirated engines

This post has been edited by vanguard: Feb 16 2017, 10:31 AM

HX7 does meet the following:
Specifications: API SN/CF; ACEA A3/B3, A3/B4; JASO SG+; MB approval 229.3; VW 502.00/505.00; GM LL-A/B-025; Renault RN0700, RN0710. Meets the requirements of Fiat 9.55535-N2 and 9.55535-M2

RM120, no worries...........

I would still trust a manufacturer that goes through the certification process - at the same price point. Even Petronas, Chinese oils got MB approval so no excuse...

So hey guys I got a contact for physical delivery for SHell Helix Ultra 5W-40. Original SHell, can SMS code to Shell Malaysia and confirm authenticity. Fully sealed. Just got mine last week.

not sure if i can do this - but its RM190 can COD near Bangsar, or nearby. Some online sources are cheaper, but this is assured ori.