Environmental concerns boost demand

Increasing concern over environmental pollution has resulted in growing demand for activated carbon in the removal of contaminants from both liquid and gas streams. Global consumption is expected to grow by 4%py from 750,000t in 2002 to around 840,000t in 2005. Current installed capacity of over 800,000tpy, planned expansions of over 30,000 tpy and potential new capacity should be sufficient to meet this new demand. World production capacity for activated carbon has continued to exceed demand, and this has exerted downward pressure on prices throughout the last decade. Production capacity is shifting from western industrialised countries to China and those in South-East Asia, where raw material, energy and labour costs are lower. New production brought onstream between 1998 and 2002 exceeded 40,000tpy, over one-third of which is located in China and a further one-third in South-East Asia.
In contrast, Australia and the USA reduced their capacity over the same period. Regeneration capacity operated by activated carbon operators worldwide is estimated at over 100,000tpy. However, the rate of growth in regeneration capacity may slow through the mid-2000s, as some markets are suffering from over-capacity after the expansions of the last few years. In addition, the influx of low-cost imports of new material from China is also exerting pressure on the regeneration market.

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