Dramatic Fall in Asbestos Production 

by David Allen and Laurie Kazan-Allen

 

 

Figures published recently by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reveal a sharp drop in asbestos production – from ~2.1 million tonnes in 2012 to ~1.4 million tonnes in 2015 (~31%).1 The fall depends primarily on a revision of Russian production levels for that period, which earlier USGS reports had recorded as being virtually static at around 1 million tonnes (t) per annum (since 2007). (It is believed that these production figures had to be “imputed” over a number of years because of lack of UN trade data upon which the USGS relies for its global asbestos reports.) Estimates for Chinese asbestos production were also slashed – by nearly 50% for the years 2014 and 2015. The amendments for Brazil and Kazakhstan were less dramatic but the initial production estimates for 2015 were reduced by ~15% for both countries in the latest revision. (See Table 1.)

We don’t know exactly on what basis the new USGS estimates have been established but reliable observers have commented that they are in line with what they have seen on the ground. (We ourselves had been puzzled by the lack of previous evidence of a fall in production but had to defer to the only comprehensive source of data readily available, i.e. advance releases of asbestos data for the USGS Minerals Yearbooks.)

USGS production estimates for 2016 and 2017 (provisional) do not show further falls, with Russian production increasing marginally (to ~690,000t) and China flatlining at 200,000t per annum.

The re-evaluation of asbestos production (downwards) has had the knock-on effect of greatly reducing apparent asbestos consumption in the four major asbestos producing countries; unless, of course, the USGS has based its revisions on an observed lowering of usage in Russia and China, leading to lower levels of production being promulgated. (See Table 2.)

It can be seen from Table 2 that the revisions to apparent consumptions, for Russia and China in particular, closely match the reductions in production shown in Table 1. This implies that export levels have not been revised to any great extent and therefore usages in the rest of the world should be little changed from their pre-revision values – for the most part these are the provisional values released by the USGS in June or July following a given year. This was found to be the case: there was no appreciable change to apparent asbestos consumptions outside the producer countries – only ~15,000t over the four years revised. (A substantially increased estimate for India in 2015 was balanced by a number of small reductions that year.)

Altogether, we discovered 17 instances (in 2012-15) involving 11 countries where significant amendments to apparent consumption have been made, the biggest revisions being in 2015, which was to be expected since there had been an earlier revision for this year which, for reasons of uniformity, we haven’t included in our comparisons. (See Table 3.)

It can be seen from Table 3 that significant tonnage revisions involved only four countries:

  • Sri Lanka: a reduction of 10,000t in 2012 was essentially balanced by an increase of 12,000t the following year;
  • India: in 2015 there was revision involving an increase of 52,000t;
  • Turkmenistan: an initial figure of 53,000t (in 2013) was slashed to 5,000t (the original value may well have been a typo since Turkmenistan typically consumes only 2-6,000t per annum);
  • Indonesia: reductions of 8,000t and 12,000t in 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Other changes were relatively small, but estimates for Malaysia were revised on three occasions and Pakistan suffered two quite large reductions to annual usage. The latter surprised us because we had thought the estimates for Pakistan were already on the low side.

IBAS Graphs and Charts

It is somewhat reassuring that – outside asbestos producing countries – values for asbestos consumption have remained largely unchanged (by the revisions), since IBAS has released a number of graphical representations relying on the “June-July” USGS data mentioned above. We had done this because we had been assured that, as it was quite rare for these values to change, the USGS had no objection to IBAS uploading material received 6 months after year-end, to keep readers abreast of current developments, providing we understood that from time to time values would be amended.

Luckily we have increasingly used averaged (over 3 years) data, meaning that the effect of the odd anomalous value was less apparent. However, references to percentage consumptions have been invalidated by the rapidly declining global production documented above, so we have had to recalibrate some material and withdraw tables entirely dependent on unrevised (2012-15) data (see: IBAS Graphics page).

One new graphic depicts apparent consumption of “traded” asbestos fiber, where relative consumptions are related to the total amount of asbestos consumed outside the major asbestos producing countries in a given year. This representation makes it easier to detect trends in the consumer countries targeted by producers. (See Traded Usage (1).)

In conclusion (see Table 4), we show the overall effect of the revisions discussed, representing data for 2011 as the average of 2010, 2011 and 2012 data; for 2015 we do the same using years 2014 to 2016 (as of writing the 2016 data are classified as “provisional”).

Table 1. Comparison of previously released USGS asbestos production data for 2012-2015 with revised values contained in USGS 2016 Report*

Historical Data Targeted2015 Report**2016 ReportDifference
tonnestonnestonnes%
2012:
Russia1,050,0001,040,000-10,000-1.0
China420,000320,000-100,000-23.8
Brazil305,000305,00000.0
Kazakhstan241,000241,00000.0
Global2,016,0001,906,000-110,000-5.5
     
2013:
Russia1,100,000810,000-290,000-26.4
China420,000280,000-140,000-33.3
Brazil291,000311,00020,0006.9
Kazakhstan243,000243,00000.0
Global2,054,0001,644,000-410,000-20.0
     
2014:
Russia1,100,000733,000-367,000-33.4
China410,000210,000-200,000-48.8
Brazil311,000250,000-61,000-19.6
Kazakhstan213,000213,00000.0
Global2,034,0001,406,000-628,000-30.9
     
2015:
Russia1,100,000650,000-450,000-40.9
China400,000210,000-190,000-47.5
Brazil311,000270,000-41,000-13.2
Kazakhstan215,000180,000-35,000-16.3
Global2,026,0001,310,000-716,000-35.3
______    
* This report (advance release) is based on data available to the USGS by December 2017 and was posted (we believe) in March 2018.
**Values in this column can be found in USGS Report 2015 (posted in December 2016 but apparently based on data available up to March 2016 – described as an "advance release").

Table 2. Comparison of previously released USGS apparent consumption data (2012-2015) for the four major asbestos producing countries with revised values contained in USGS 2016 Report*

Historical Data Targeted2015 Report**2016 ReportDifference
tonnestonnestonnes%
2012:
Russia196,000319,000123,00062.8
China531,000431,000-100,000-18.8
Brazil168,000166,000-2,000-1.2
Kazakhstan5,29093,50088,2101667.5
Global900,2901,009,500109,21012.1
     
2013:
Russia482,000209,000-273,000-56.6
China570,000430,000-140,000-24.6
Brazil165,000165,00000.0
Kazakhstan67,20067,20000.0
Global1,284,200871,200-413,000-32.2
     
2014:
Russia478,000156,000-322,000-67.4
China507,000357,000-150,000-29.6
Brazil181,000181,00009.7
Kazakhstan39,50039,50000.0
Global1,205,500733,500-472,000-38.3
     
2015:
Russia573,000124,000-449,000-78.4
China478,000287,000-191,000-40.0
Brazil204,000163,000-41,000-20.1
Kazakhstan48,00011,300-36,700-76.5
Global1,303,000585,300-717,700-55.1
______    
* This report (advance release) is based on data available to the USGS by December 2017 and was posted (we believe) in March 2018.
**Values in this column can be found in USGS Report 2015 (posted in December 2016 but apparently based on data available up to March 2016 – described as an "advance release").

Table 3. Comparison of previously released USGS asbestos consumption data for 2012-2015 with revised values contained in USGS 2016 Report* for non-producing countries where significant revisions have occurred

Historical Data Targeted2015 Report**2016 ReportDifference
tonnestonnestonnes%
2012:
SriLanka54,70444,300-10,404-19.0
Mexico17,02014,300-2,720-16.0
Pakistan10,0544,430-5,624-55.9
Malaysia2,3508,3105,960253.5
     
2013:
SriLanka22,95334,90011,94752.0
Pakistan6,3153,800-2,515-39.8
Malaysia6,5114,960-1,551-23.8
Indonesia156,050148,000-8,050-5.2
Turkmenistan52,9835,280-47,703-90.0
     
2014:
Malaysia1,9663,5901,62482.6
     
2015:
Indonesia131,622120,000-11,622-8.8
India318,262370,00051,73816.3
Ukraine12,07010,400-1,670-13.8
Bangladesh8,19010,4002,21027.0
Kyrgyzstan2,9214,4501,52952.4
Colombia4,7705,9601,19125.0
______    
* This report (advance release) is based on data available to the USGS by December 2017 and was posted (we believe) in March 2018.
**Values in this column can be found in USGS Report 2015 (posted in December 2016 but apparently based on data available up to March 2016 – described as an "advance release").

Table 4. Comparison of USGS asbestos data on asbestos fiber production and apparent consumption for the major asbestos producing countries: 2015 versus 2011*

CountryProductionConsumption
20112015Difference20112015Difference
tonnestonnestonnes%tonnestonnestonnes%
Russia1,022,000692,000-331,000-32.3287,000171,000-115,000-40.2
China368,000220,000-148,000-40.3561,000311,000-250,000-44.6
Brazil304,000260,000-44,000-14.5175,000155,000-21,000-11.8
Kazakhstan226,000195,000-31,000-13.683,00025,000-57,000-69.4
Canada50,000--50,000-----
Other**----964,000758,000-206,000-21.4
Global1,969,0001,367,000-602,000-30.62,070,0001,420,000-650,000-31.4
______        
* Values for 2011 computed as average (2010, 2011, 2012 USGS values); similarly, values for 2015 computed as average (2014, 2015, 2016 USGS values); tonnages rounded to nearest thousand.
**Contribution of minor producers not included; the 50,000 tonnes entered for Canada marks the end of that country's involvement in the asbestos trade (we trust).

May 3, 2018

_______

1 This report can currently be downloaded at 2016 - Advance Data Release; other recent asbestos consumption and production estimates as well as historical asbestos data are also available from the USGS website, principally under the heading "Minerals Yearbook."

 

 

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