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Unlike the US, Australia's silica sand industry has not benefitted from a fracking boom. But as Cameron Perks*, IM Correspondent, explains, the country's sand producers have a diverse range of expanding markets to choose from.
Australia's silica sand industry has been well established for several decades, with much of its output going into traditional markets such as construction, glass and foundry. Unlike the US, where the fracking industry has expanded rapidly in the last five years to drive silica sand consumption in oilfields, growth in demand for silica Australia has been spread across a wide variety of markets, including a number of high value applications for quartz sand and silicon metal.
The US was the world's leading producer and consumer of industrial sand and gravel in 2015. The country produced almost 95m tonnes silica sand last year, making up 53% of world production. About 71% of domestically mined US material was used in US fracking, well packing and cementing sand applications in 2015, while 8% went into other whole grain silica uses; 7% was used in glassmaking; 6% was used as foundry sand; and the remaining 8% was shared between other, smaller markets.
Global demand for industrial silica is forecast to rise by 5.5% per year to 291m tonnes in 2018, according to a recent study by the Freedonia Group, which forecast that the glass, foundry and building products sectors will drive industry growth.
Given its wide range of deposit types and domestic expertise in silica sand mining and processing, it is likely that Australian sand producers will be among some of the chief beneficiaries of this rise in consumption.
Silica sand production in US vs the rest of the world (2015)
Source: USGS
Australian silica sand producers
Queensland
In the financial year 2014-15, the Australian state of Queensland mined almost 2.4m tonnes silica, around 2m tonnes of which came from the world's biggest silica mine at Cape Flattery, 220km north of Cairns, where high grade dune sand silica, suitable for making liquid crystal displays (LCD), used in 90% of the world's flat screen televisions, is produced.
Besides Cape Flattery's output, Queensland's silica production included around 80,000 tonnes lump and other types of silica. Sand mined for foundries in 2014-15 in Queensland was not recorded...