White Mineral Oil (Liquid Paraffin, USP and Technical Grades)

Pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food and technical white oils, bought on viscosity and purity tests

White mineral oil is a base oil refined until the aromatics and sulphur compounds are gone, so it is colourless, odourless and close to inert, and it is sold to three rulebooks. The pharmacopoeias set the medicinal and cosmetic grades. The European Pharmacopoeia monograph 0239, Liquid Paraffin (Paraffinum liquidum), a purified mixture of liquid saturated hydrocarbons from petroleum, sets a viscosity of 110 to 230 mPa·s and a relative density of 0.827 to 0.890; monograph 0240, Light Liquid Paraffin (Paraffinum perliquidum), sets 25 to 80 mPa·s and 0.810 to 0.875. Both test acidity or alkalinity, readily carbonisable substances with hot sulphuric acid, solid paraffins after four hours in iced water, and polycyclic aromatics by extracting into dimethyl sulphoxide and reading the UV absorbance from 260 to 420 nm, which may nowhere exceed one third of a 7.0 mg/L naphthalene reference at 275 nm. The USP splits at the same point by kinematic viscosity: supplier USP sheets give Mineral Oil at 34.5 to 150.0 mm2/s at 40 °C and a specific gravity of 0.845 to 0.905, and Light Mineral Oil at no more than 33.5 cSt and 0.818 to 0.880. Food use in the United States runs under 21 CFR 172.878: white mineral oil, essentially paraffinic and naphthenic, refined to pass the USP tests for readily carbonisable substances and sulphur compounds and the 1962 AOAC ultraviolet absorbance specification, with limits by use, such as 0.15% in bakery products and 0.6% of a capsule or tablet. Technical white oil is the lower step, under 21 CFR 178.3620(b): Saybolt colour of +20 minimum by ASTM D156 and UV absorbance of no more than 4.0 at 280-289 nm, 3.3 at 290-299 nm, 2.3 at 300-329 nm and 0.8 at 330-350 nm, for food-contact articles rather than food.

Trade names follow viscosity. Ph. Eur. and BP grades are named liquid paraffin and light liquid paraffin; US grades carry a number that is usually the viscosity in Saybolt Universal Seconds at 100 °F, so a 'White Mineral Oil 220 USP' sheet reads 209 SUS at 100 °F, 40.7 cSt at 40 °C and 6.24 cSt at 100 °C, flash point 225 °C COC, pour point -12 °C and Saybolt colour +30, and a grade number in an enquiry is checked against the sheet's cSt at 40 °C before it is matched. A buyer's certificate of analysis should show kinematic viscosity at 40 °C, density, Saybolt colour, flash point, readily carbonisable substances, sulphur compounds and the UV or PAH result for the grade's rulebook. For customs white oil sits in HS 2710.19 with the lubricating oils: the EU Combined Nomenclature gives it its own code, 2710 19 85, 'white oils, liquid paraffin', at 3.7% third-country duty, the EAC tariff has technical white oil on 2710.19.57 at 0%, and Bangladesh splits liquid paraffin in drum (2710.19.51) from other (2710.19.59). EU refiners exported 38,972 t under CN 2710 19 85 outside the EU in 2025 at an average €2,055/t, led by France (14,899 t), the Netherlands (11,038 t), Germany (4,899 t) and Belgium (4,618 t). CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers white mineral oil against the producing refinery's certificate of analysis to the named monograph or regulation, a certificate of origin naming the refinery, and SGS or Intertek inspection at load. Lots move in 208-litre drums, 1,000-litre IBCs, flexitanks and ISO tanks. Send the grade and the rulebook it must meet, the viscosity at 40 °C, the quantity, the packing, the destination port and the payment terms.

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Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.