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The State of the Abrasives Industry Worldwide

Knowing where you stand in relation to others brings a sense of security, combined with awareness of where you want to go next. This article shows how international trading in the nearly $29 billion abrasives industry is changing.

From: iAbrasive.comDate: 2014-09-28 10:19:29Views: 468

Knowing where you stand in relation to others brings a sense of security, combined with awareness of where you want to go next. This is true of individuals and companies. One way of knowing where you stand is to look at trading trends, and this article shows how international trading in the nearly $29 billion abrasives industry is changing. To make domestic abrasives companies gain a better understanding of the global abrasives industry developing trend and get the most accurate information, iAbrasive has invited an experienced American writer, Susette Horspool, who knows a lot about the abrasives industry, from Elance.com to make a detailed introduction to the situation of the abrasives industry.

Trends in Production & Supply

Global demand for abrasives has been climbing almost 6% per year for the last several years, and is expected to continue at that rate for the next several. The figures that follow were gleaned from the Mineral Commodity Summary produced by the US Geological Survey in January, 2012.

China has been the biggest producer of fused aluminum oxide and abrasive silicon carbide for a number of years, producing nearly 695,000 tons and 450,000 tons respectively per year. 

• In 2011 the biggest producers in the region of Asia and Pacific (China, India, Japan, Australia) produced an estimated 815,000 tons of fused aluminum oxide and 520,000 tons of abrasive silicon carbide.

• The second highest in regional production in 2011 was Europe (Austria, Norway, France, Germany) with 180,000 tons of aluminum oxide and 132,000 tons of silicon carbide. 

• Production activities in the United States and Canada were quite a bit lower, due to higher operating costs. Those two countries, plus Mexico, produced about 60,400 tons of aluminum oxide and 87,000 tons of silicon carbide in 2011. 

• South America (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela) came in relatively close to North America with 50,000 tons of aluminum oxide and 78,000 tons of silicon carbide. 

• The other 80,000 tons of aluminum oxide and 190,000 tons of silicon carbide produced that year came from an accumulated smattering of smaller producers worldwide.

This production trend is expected to continue, with the exception of slow, but gradual increases of garnet, emery, and metallic abrasives to replace the use of fused aluminum oxide and silicon carbide in some applications.

Trends in Buying

In 2010-11 the US imported 80% of its crude silicon carbide, 83% of its crude aluminum oxide, 42% of its silicon carbide grains, and 6% of its fused aluminum oxide grains from China. The only country the US imported more from was Brazil for 30% of its fused aluminum oxide grain.

During the next few years, according to a 2014 British Market Watch report on the world abrasives market, abrasives demand in North America and Western Europe is expected to increase with the recovery of the economy - 4% per year in the US, 2% per year in Europe. 

In the Asia/Pacific region, overall growth is expected to slow down through 2017, although China's 10% increase per year may continue a little while longer. 

As currently developing parts of Asia and non-Western regions grow, their overall demand for abrasives will begin to outstrip that of the US, Western Europe, and Japan, especially as their durable goods sectors mature.

Product Trends

According to Linx-Consulting, a US market reporting firm, one market expected to grow at least 10% per year is specialty abrasives for computer multi-processing. 

According to a British Market Watch report in July, 2014 paper and coated abrasives will show the biggest growth in the next few years, with metallics and super-abrasives being next. The fastest growing product category is nonmetallic abrasives, especially loose abrasive grains and powders. 

Major buyers in the US markets have been the aerospace, automotive, furniture, housing, and steel industries and this will continue. 

Globally imports, exports, consumption, and prices of manufactured abrasives will continue to slowly increase as economies recover. Overall, the trends look good.

About iAbrasive.com

Designed to facilitate trade between abrasives businesses negotiating worldwide, the entire iAbrasive.com was developed by professionals. The basic services provided by the webportal include:

Company & Product Promotion
Buyer/Supplier Search
Buyer/Supplier Communication

All services built into the site, and those offered in addition to onsite services are industry updates in the form of onsite newsletter that informs buyers and suppliers about new developments in the abrasives industry.

About Elance.com

Elance.com is the largest outsourcing website globally. It provides great freelancers' information for companies in need.

About Susette Horspool

Susette Horspool

Susette Horspool have written a wide variety of documents and articles for business, government and nonprofit organizations with accuracy and integrity. Her articles have been spoke highly of by professional journalists and writers. She has done multiple research into various fields, including the abrasives industry. As a result, the article is based on numerous statistics and facts, and thus is believable.

Copyright: iAbrasive.com--Abrasives & Diamond Tools Market

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