On September 6, 1866 American John Ellis founded the Continuous Oil Refining Company. While studying the possible healing powers of crude oil, Dr. Ellis was disappointed to find no real medicinal value, but was intrigued by its potential lubricating properties. He eventually abandoned the medical practice to devote his time to the development of an all-petroleum, high viscosity lubricant for steam engines – then using inefficient combinations of petroleum and animal and vegetable fats. He made his breakthrough when he developed an oil that worked effectively in high temperatures.This meant no more gummed valves, corroded cylinders or leaking seals. Moreover, this meant that the stage was set for the liberation of steam power and the growth of a nation via rail road and steam ships.

The market of MDO is much smaller than on-highway diesel. According to the a 2004 U.S. Diesel Fuel Sales statistics from U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Marine shipping only takes 3.7% of total diesel market. On the other hand, On-highway diesel takes up 59.5% of diesel fuel sales.This small sales share of MDO is due to the high proportion of petroleum resid that made it can be used on large marine engine. According to Chevron, petroleum resid, or inorganic salts, in the fuel result in injector tip deposits that prevent the injector from creating the desired fuel spray pattern. But those low-speed, large marine diesel engines are appropriate for using fuel containing large amounts of petroleum resid.

It is estimated that 40% of all lubricants are released into the environment. Common Disposal methods include Recycling, burning, landfill and discharge into water, though typically disposal in landfill and discharge into water are strictly regulated in most countries, as even small amount of lubricant can contaminate a large amount of water. Most regulations permit a threshold level of lubricant that may be present in waste streams and companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually in treating their waste waters to get to acceptable levels.

Burning the lubricant as fuel, typically to generate electricity, is also governed by regulations mainly on account of the relatively high level of additives present. Burning generates both airborne pollutants and ash rich in toxic materials, mainly heavy metal compounds. Thus lubricant burning takes place in specialized facilities that have incorporated special scrubbers to remove airborne pollutants and have access to landfill sites with permits to handle the toxic ash.

Unfortunately, most lubricant that ends up directly in the environment is due to general public discharging it onto the ground, into drains and directly into landfills as trash. Other direct contamination sources include runoff from roadways, accidental spillages, natural or man-made disasters and pipeline leakages.

Improvement in filtration technologies and processes has now made recycling a viable option (with rising price of base stock and crude oil). Typically various filtration systems remove particulates, additives and oxidation products and recover the base oil. The oil may get refined during the process. This base oil is then treated much the same as virgin base oil however there is considerable reluctance to use recycled oils as they are generally considered inferior. Basestock fractionally vacuum distilled from used lubricants has superior properties to all natural oils, but cost effectiveness depends on many factors. Used lubricant may also be used as refinery feedstock to become part of crude oil. Again there is considerable reluctance to this use as the additives, soot and wear metals will seriously poison/deactivate the critical catalysts in the process. Cost prohibits carrying out both filtration (soot, additives removal) and re-refining (distilling, isomerisation, hydrocrack, etc.) however the primary hindrance to recycling still remains the collection of fluids as refineries need continuous supply in amounts measured in cisterns, rail tanks.

Occasionally, unused lubricant requires disposal. The best course of action in such situations is to return it to the manufacturer where it can be processed as a part of fresh batches.