ROWE has stood for high-quality, "Made in Germany" lubricants since it was founded in February 1995 in Flörsheim-Dalsheim, Rhine-Hesse. The company moved its headquarters to Bubenheim in 2000, then began production at its current Worms plant in 2014 — a 110,000m² site the company describes as one of Europe's most modern lubricant factories, with an AdBlue filling plant and grease production added in 2015.
Today ROWE is a family-managed business of around 350 staff, with products sold in more than 80 countries worldwide. The wider ROWE Group runs to around a dozen companies beyond lubricant production itself, spanning mechanical and plant engineering, wastewater treatment, container production, international sales offices (including Romania, Russia, Bulgaria, the USA, South Africa and China), a construction and project business, and its own motorsport team, Motorsport Competence Group AG — the same team behind the racing-developed HighTec oils in the H-Line range.
Two product lines make up the range H-Line Automotive carries: HighTec, ROWE's core engine, transmission and workshop range, covering everything from everyday car and motorcycle oils to racing-developed fluids; and Sunspeed, ROWE's biosynthetic range, built on a base oil derived from biomass rather than fossil crude, meeting the same manufacturer approvals as the conventional HighTec equivalents.
ROWE frames sustainability as an entrepreneurial commitment rather than a marketing exercise, built around five action fields: using energy efficiently and reducing CO₂ emissions, designing company premises sustainably, saving resources and preventing waste, strengthening sustainability throughout the supply chain, and producing lubricants based on renewable raw materials.
A 4,000m² solar array (749 kWp) at the Worms site, a second solar plant in Bubenheim (488 kWp), and an on-site combined heat and power plant (600 kW thermal / 600 kW electrical), backed by modern energy management and process control systems.
The Worms factory itself was built with sustainability in mind, one part of why ROWE describes it as one of the most modern lubricant plants in Europe.
Ongoing focus on reducing material waste and resource use across production.
Extending sustainability standards upstream and downstream through suppliers and partners, not just within the factory gates.
Years of R&D into lubricants based on renewable feedstocks rather than fossil crude — the direct origin of the Sunspeed range.
The clearest expression of that last point is Sunspeed: a motor oil built on a biosynthetic base — high-performance synthetic hydrocarbons synthesised entirely from plant biomass rather than mineral base oils — engineered to match the performance of ROWE's conventional oils. ROWE develops and proves the range through its own motorsport team, ROWE RACING, using race conditions as a testbed before improvements reach the shelf.
Full detail on ROWE's sustainability programme is available directly from the manufacturer at rowe-oil.com ↗, and on the company more broadly at rowe-oil.com ↗.