1. The overall development of the garnet sand industry
Garnet sand is a natural abrasive processed from garnet raw ore。Garnet was originally used to produce semi-precious gemstones, but production was limited and its development was slow. From the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, the world industrial revolution promoted the intensification of economic competition and the development of science and technology, people began to use the hardness characteristics of garnet to make abrasives, this new use of garnet production from sporadic, scattered, small quantities to centralized, mass production and enter a new stage. With the continuous improvement of product quality and process technology, the industrial value of garnet has gradually become prominent.
In the 90s of the 20th century, the gradual commercialization of ultra-high-pressure waterjet cutting systems led to a rapid expansion of the garnet market as a high-quality waterjet sand at a rate of about 20% per year. Since the beginning of the 21st century, benefiting from the rapid development of the global economy, infrastructure construction and high-end manufacturing industries, the garnet industry has entered a period of rapid development, and the downstream application fields of garnet represented by transportation machinery, military industry and cutting-edge industries have achieved rapid development.
Garnet sand can be used for cutting and polishing operations such as spacecraft and aircraft manufacturing, as well as cutting and sandblasting and rust removal operations for ships and oil and gas services, and its application value in sandblasting and rust removal, polishing and grinding is widely recognized.
In addition, with the pressure of environmental protection and the transformation of economic development model, garnet sand has great market potential in replacing artificial abrasives with its advantages of energy saving, environmental protection and cost economy. The market size of abrasives in China exceeds 200 billion yuan, and it is currently dominated by artificial abrasives. In recent years, under the influence of multiple factors such as the high level of various raw materials, the gradual rise in electricity costs, and the guidance of national policies such as "carbon neutrality", the backward production capacity with high energy consumption and high pollution is being phased out, and high-quality natural abrasives such as garnet sand that can replace artificial abrasives will continue to increase market share.
2. Garnet reserves and distribution
Global reserves
Garnet is abundant in the world, and it is widely distributed in various geological processes in nature due to the different main causes. For example, pyrope garnet is mainly found in kimberlite and mantle inclusions and basalts, while almandine is mainly found in regionally metamorphosed schist, amphibole, gneiss, dolerite, granulite and its placers.
Globally, large garnet deposits are found in countries such as Australia, Canada, China, India and South Africa. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Summary of Mineral Products (2023), the identified garnet reserves in the United States in 2022 were approximately 5 million tonnes, and the total identified garnet reserves in India were approximately 13 million tonnes. Since garnet is mostly associated ore and is usually rarely studied and developed as a main ore, reserve verification has certain limitations.
Domestic reserves
China's main production of almandine, garnet deposits are mainly distributed in Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, by the end of 2015, the identified reserves of garnet minerals in China were 38,766520,000 tons.
3. Garnet production
From the perspective of production areas, Australia, China, South Africa, India and the United States are the main producers of garnet in the world, and Australia and China account for more than half of the world's total garnet production and are the main garnet exporters.
From 2010 to 2015, global garnet production was relatively stable, and in 2017, Australia closed mines and India cracked down.
French mining and port restrictions have led to a decrease in global garnet production. After China's garnet industry experienced the first environmental protection inspection and safety production inspection in 2016, a large number of small processing plants were shut down for rectification, and the phenomenon of private mining and small workshop production was further curbed, resulting in a sharp decline in market supply. With the improvement of industry standardization and the development of the industry to scale and intensification, the production of garnet in China has gradually increased, and it has become the main producer of garnet.
4. Garnet demand
Looking at the global market, garnet is not only used as a good abrasive medium material and water jet cutting medium in transportation machinery, military industry and cutting-edge industry, but also in many fields and scenarios such as water filtration treatment and oil and gas services. At present, the downstream of domestic garnet products are mainly used in the fields of water jet cutting, surface treatment and abrasive production, and the applications in other fields are still in the market development period. Overall, there is a large room for growth in the demand for garnet products in China, as follows:
Broad application prospects drive domestic demand to continue to rise
From the perspective of domestic demand, on the one hand, with the in-depth promotion of digital industry and intelligent manufacturing, the automation and intelligence level of water jet cutting has been continuously improved, coupled with its strong versatility, cold cutting does not change the physical state of the material, small cutting seams, clean and environmental protection, neat and smooth cutting surface, etc., will be further widely used in the future, and the demand for garnet sand as the main consumable of water jet cutting will also continue to grow.
On the other hand, with reference to the development trend of the global abrasives and abrasives industry, with the increasing national requirements for environmental protection, natural abrasives with high hardness such as garnet sand will gradually replace artificial abrasives such as quartz sand and brown corundum sand in the fields of surface treatment and abrasive production with their environmentally friendly characteristics, and the market penetration rate is constantly improving. The market space for surface treatment and abrasive production is large, which is expected to drive the rapid growth of domestic demand for garnet sand.
There is still a lot of room for growth in exports
Garnet ore can be divided into rock ore and coastal placer ore according to its genesis. China's garnet ore is mainly rock ore, which has the inherent characteristics of difficult mining and beneficiation, low effective mineral content, etc., while placer ore is mostly natural single crystal due to seawater erosion, with round and full particle size, no need to crush, grinding and other artificial dissociation links.
Therefore, for a long time, the supply of overseas markets mainly comes from India, South Africa and Australia and other countries rich in garnet placer ore, and China's garnet sand produced by rock ore is facing the dual pressure of quality and cost to the international market. However, with the continuous R&D investment of Chinese enterprises and the continuous improvement of garnet sand production technology, the gap between domestic garnet sand and similar foreign products in product performance has gradually narrowed, and the cost-effective advantage has gradually become prominent.
In the application scenario of water jet cutting, due to the sharp edges, specific gravity and high hardness of rock ore garnet, compared with placer ore, it has the advantages of high cutting efficiency and low cost, and China's garnet sand products have taken the lead in entering the field of water jet cutting in overseas markets, and continue to increase market share.
In addition, the gas and oil industries are also major garnet consuming industries, and garnet sand is commonly used for oil pipeline surface treatment, but also as a fracking proppant for oil and gas development. Therefore, in overseas markets, especially in countries rich in fossil energy such as Russia and the Middle East, garnet sand has a large market space.
With the gradual development of China's garnet processing industry to scale and standardization, China's enterprises have gradually entered the first-class system of overseas downstream industries, and it is expected that the garnet sand export market will still have a large growth space in the future.
5. Application in downstream fields
As a natural abrasive, garnet sand has both environmental protection properties and good use performance. Compared with traditional abrasives such as quartz sand, garnet sand does not contain free silicon or radioactive elements, and does not require secondary treatment after use; At the same time, garnet sand can partially replace high energy-consuming artificial abrasives such as brown corundum, and is a natural abrasive with high hardness.
Based on the above advantages, garnet sand has become the mainstream abrasive choice in the field of water jet cutting, and occupies an important position in the field of surface treatment. In the future, garnet sand still has a lot of room for development in the application fields of replacing traditional abrasives for abrasive production and environmental protection water treatment.
Waterjet cutting industry
a.Overview of the waterjet cutting industry
Waterjet cutting, commonly known as waterjet cutting, is a new cutting technology that emerged in the 90s of the 20th century, with the characteristics of cold cutting and non-selectivity to materials, that is, soft, hard, tough, brittle, metal or non-metal can be cut and processed, and no heat response area, no sparks and dust. Therefore, the application of water jet cutting technology is becoming more and more extensive, and it has expanded from the cutting of ordinary stone to the cutting application of special materials such as industrial non-metallic materials, composite materials, superhard wear-resistant materials, and advanced materials.
b.The state of the market in the waterjet cutting industry
The main tool in the waterjet cutting market is the waterjet cutting machine, with abrasives as the main consumables, among which, garnet sand is an important part of the abrasive. According to China Glass Network, the demand for waterjet cutting machines will be boosted by the increasing requirements of the automotive industry and other industries for tight tolerances in fine cutting operations, and the waterjet cutting machine market is expected to reach $2.6 billion by the end of 2030, growing at a CAGR of 780%。
c.The water jet cutting industry has broad market prospects
Due to the ability of waterjets to cut tiny parts with high precision and special surface finishes, micro-waterjet cutting technology has become the development trend of the future, requiring a higher fineness of the abrasive. With the improvement of cutting precision, waterjet cutting will have great application prospects in high-end manufacturing, transportation machinery, military industry and cutting-edge industry, the demand for waterjet cutting machines will grow on a large scale, and the market for high-quality waterjet abrasives will continue to improve.
Surface treatment industry
a.Basic situation of the surface treatment industry
Surface treatment is the process of removing dirt such as a contaminated layer or covering layer formed on the surface of an object due to physical, chemical, or biological action, and restoring it to its original surface condition. According to the cleaning method, it can usually be divided into physical cleaning and chemical cleaning. Physical cleaning is mainly throughJets, sandblasting machines, high-pressure cold water, hot water cleaning machinesCompared with other cleaning methods, it has the advantages of high efficiency, water saving, energy saving, no pollution, no corrosion, and labor input, and has gradually replaced traditional cleaning methods such as manual cleaning and chemical cleaning in recent years.
As an important branch of physical cleaning, sandblasting surface treatment uses compressed air as the power to form a high-speed jet beam to spray the abrasive material to the surface of the workpiece to be treated at high speed, so that the appearance or shape of the workpiece surface changes. Due to the impact and cutting effect of the abrasive on the surface of the workpiece, the surface of the workpiece obtains a certain cleanliness and different roughness, so that the mechanical properties of the surface of the workpiece are improved, so the fatigue resistance of the workpiece is improved, the adhesion between it and the coating is increased, the durability of the coating film is prolonged, and it is also conducive to the leveling and decoration of the coating.
Traditional sandblasting surface treatment generally uses copper ore, quartz sand, emery, iron sand, sea sand and other spraying materials for dry sandblasting operations, and the traditional spraying materials contain free silicon, which is extremely polluting to the surrounding environment, and the prevalence of pneumoconiosis among sandblasting workers remains high. As an efficient, economical and environmentally friendly surface treatment sandblasting material, garnet sand does not contain free silica and meets the relevant standards of Europe, America and the World Health Organization. Under the guidance of national policies and the improvement of public awareness of environmental protection, garnet sand has become an inevitable trend to replace traditional abrasives.
Garnet sand is a new type of environmentally friendly surface treatment abrasive material, which has the advantages of high efficiency, environmental protection and safety compared with other traditional abrasives.
b.The market size and development prospects of the industry
According to Markets and Markets, an international investment advisory firm, the global industrial cleaning market size was $46.8 billion in 2019 and will reach around $58.2 billion by 2024, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 45%。The global industrial cleaning demand market is mainly concentrated in the Asia-Pacific market, which accounted for 35% of the global industrial cleaning demand market in 2019, and the share is still increasing, and the Chinese market is dominant.
According to the statistics of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in recent years, China's industrial cleaning industry has maintained a good development trend, and the industry scale has reached 853 in 2019700 million yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 6 in the past five years39%。With the gradual implementation of China's manufacturing industry upgrading and China's local enterprises continue to make breakthroughs in the high-end manufacturing industry, China's industrial cleaning market will also achieve leapfrog development.
Abrasives production industry
Abrasives are processing tools that are used for grinding, grinding, and polishing in the processing process, and are called "industrial teeth", and are usually made by bonding abrasive grains with a binder.
a.The basic situation of the global abrasives industry
According to Industry Research, the global abrasives market size was 415$400 million, and the market size is expected to reach 848 by 2030$400 million, with a compound growth rate of 671%。With the development of construction and manufacturing, the global abrasives market will continue to maintain rapid growth. Internationally, the abrasives market is usually divided into consolidated abrasives, coated abrasives, and other abrasives. Consolidated abrasives are tools made of abrasives and binders with a certain shape and certain grinding ability, which are a kind of traditional abrasives, common consolidated abrasives such as grinding wheels, cutting discs, grinding heads, oil stones, etc.
In 2020, consolidated abrasives accounted for 43% of the total market size, making them the largest category in the abrasives market. Coated abrasives are tools that can be ground and polished by bonding abrasives to flexible materials such as cloth and paper with binders, such as abrasive rolls, sand sheets, abrasive belts, etc. Coated abrasives are widely used, and in industrially developed countries, the output value of coated abrasives accounts for about 40% of the total output value of abrasives, and there will be a large growth rate in the future.
The Asia-Pacific region is currently the world's largest market for abrasives and will continue to lead the global market in the future. According to Grand View Research, the Asia-Pacific abrasives industry accounted for 54% of the global total revenue in 2020, and the Asian region will continue to maintain the fastest compound growth rate in the world in the next 8 years, mainly driven by infrastructure construction, manufacturing investment growth and mass production of electric vehicles in Asia.
b.China's abrasives market
a.Consolidated abrasives
From 2015 to 2019, the annual output of consolidated abrasives in China was stable, remaining at about 700,000-800,000 tons per year. From the perspective of import and export, the export output is about 250,000 tons, accounting for 31%-36% of the total output, and the export unit price is about 0US$260,000 tonnes; The import volume is about 10,000 tons.
The unit price is about 1$860,000 tonnes and showing a trend. From the perspective of demand, 97 of the abrasives consumed in China every year8% are domestic low-end products, 03% are domestic high-end products, 19% are imported abrasive products. 80% of China's high-end abrasives rely on imports, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in the demand for high-end abrasives.
b.Coated with abrasives
With the continuous development of global and Chinese economy and science and technology, the output value of industrial manufacturing has increased rapidly, driving the rapid growth of market demand for high-end precision coated abrasives. According to the data of the Coated Abrasives Branch of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, the output value of the industry in 2021 will reach the highest value of 68 in recent years7.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1820%, the output of coated abrasives is up to 5400 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 1560%。
From the perspective of the import and export situation of the industry, China's coated abrasives are mainly export-oriented, and the export scale is much larger than the import scale. In 2022, the export value of coated abrasives in China will be 6$5.7 billion, an increase of 090%；The import amount is 2$1 billion, down 630%。In the future, local enterprises are also needed to further improve the grinding performance of products, enhance the added value of products, and stimulate the sustainable development of the industry through research and development of high-end products.
Environmentally friendly water treatment market
The application of garnet sand in the field of water filtration has emerged since the 80s of the 20th century, and it is also the largest application of garnet in the field of non-abrasive. Garnet filter material has the characteristics of high melting point, specific gravity, acid resistance, wear resistance, high strength, stable chemical properties, etc., and can be used as a water treatment filter medium in chemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical and other fields, and the garnet particle size used for filtration is generally 025-5.0mm.
Oil and gas fracturing proppant market
Oil and gas fracturing proppant products are widely used in oil and gas exploitation operations, and are the supports that keep the rock fractures deep in the formation in a cracked state to ensure the smooth progress of oil exploitation. Proppant is an important part of the initial investment cost of oil and gas wells, which is used to improve the permeability of oil and gas layers, increase oil and gas production, and determine the economic life of oil and gas wells.
Garnet sand has the advantages of high hardness, strong corrosion resistance and economical cost, and has been used as a fracturing proppant for oil and gas development in overseas markets. As the depth of oil and gas wells increases year by year, there is still a huge consumption gap in Europe and other parts of Asia, especially in energy-rich countries such as Russia and the Middle East.