China Continues to Dominate the Global Pyrite Market

IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Pyrites - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2025". Here is a summary of the report’s key findings.

Pyrite Consumption in the World Retains a Flat Trend Pattern

In 2016, global pyrite market stood at 15.4M tonnes, remaining relatively stable over the last four years. Previously, a sharp fall in 2009 was followed by a robust growth over the next three years, until the market volume levelled off through to 2016. In value terms, it reached $1,670M in 2016. 

From 2007 to 2016, the global pyrites market demonstrated mixed trends with regard to the total market value, conditioned by perceptible fluctuations in prices. According to IndexBox estimates, a deep plunge of 2009 (39% Y-o-Y) was followed by a sharp increase over the next two years. Afterwards, however, it flattened through to 2013 and then went down pronouncedly from 2014-2015, bouncing back in the last year. 

China Continues to Dominate Global Pyrite Market

China dominated global pyrite consumption, with approx. 14.8M tonnes consumed in 2016, which accounted for 96% of the world total. In China, pyrite is the main raw material for sulfur production, this explains large market volume. For comparison, in other countries, sulfur either originates from natural sources, or is a by-product from refinery and metallurgical processes. Outside China, the countries with the highest consumption were Finland (197K tonnes), Russia (121K tonnes), Germany (94K tonnes), Canada (35K tonnes), and Brazil (35K tonnes).

In China, pyrite consumption increased modesty by on average +3.0% per year from 2007-2016. Since China dominates the global consumption, this figure determined the global average growth. By contrast, in Finland (-3.6% per year) and Russia (-11.9% per year) pyrite consumption contracted over the same period.

Amongst the leading consuming countries, Finland (35.8 kg/year in 2016) recorded the highest levels of per capita consumption, which was significantly higher than the world average of 2.1 kg/year. China ranked second in terms of per capita consumption, with 10.7 kg/year; this should be considered as a high level, given the total population of China as compared with Finland. In the other major consuming countries, per capita consumption of pyrites did not exceed 1.3 kg/year. 

Pyrites Production Remains Relatively Stable

Production of pyrites stood at 15.3M tonnes in 2016, growing at an annual average growth rate of +2.3% over the last nine years. From 2010 to 2014, total pyrites output had a relatively flat trend pattern, which was preceded by a notable decline in 2009. Over the last two years, the volume of production reduced very slightly from the level of 2014. 

China Produced about 96% of Total Output

China was the key pyrite producing country in the world, with an output of about 14.6M tonnes in 2016, which accounted for 96% of total global output. The other major producers were Finland, Russia, Brazil, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Turkey. However, each of these countries accounted for a negligible share of total production. 

At the World Market Level, Pyrite TradeIs Insignificant

In 2016, exports accounted for only 2% of global pyrites output. Due to low trade intensity, imports and exports should not be regarded as strong factors influencing global market trends in the medium term.

Finland Remains a Major Exporter of Pyrites

In 2016, the volume of global exports totaled 267K tonnes, with a mixed trend pattern over the last few years. Finland (200K tonnes) was the main global supplier of pyrites with a share of 75% of global exports. China (7%), Russia (5%), Italy (4%), and Turkey (2%) were the other major exporters.

From 2007 to 2016, exports from Finland grew with a CAGR of +9.3% per year, while Turkey was the fastest growing exporter (+89.0% per year). Finland increased significantly its share in terms of the total exports by +25 percentage points, while Turkey gained only a modest increase of +2 percentage points; by contrast, Russia (-4 percentage points) and China (-16 percentage points) experienced a contraction of their shares. 

China, Germany and Canada Constitute the Major Importers of Pyrites

The volume of global imports totaled 349K tonnes in 2016. Imports trend pattern generally mirrored that of exports: these trade flows globally complement each other.

In 2016, China (48% of total imports), Germany (28%), Canada (10%), Italy (4%) and Japan (3%) constituted the leading destinations of pyrites imports, together comprising 93% of global imports. Amongst the major importing countries China (+30.4% per year) and Canada (+12.0% per year) gained the highest annual growth rates from 2007 to 2016. While the share of China increased significantly from 7% in 2007 to 48% in 2016, Canada increased its share by +5 percentage points; the share of Italy (-3 percentage points), Japan (-11 percentage points), and Germany (-13 percentage points) demonstrated a contraction. The shares of the other countries remained relatively stable throughout the analysed period.

Do you want to know more about the global pyrite market? Get the latest trends and insight from our report. It includes a wide range of statistics on

• pyrites market share
• pyrites prices
• pyrites industry
• pyrites sales
• pyrites import
• pyrites export
• pyrites market forecast
• pyrites price forecast
• key pyrites producers

Source: World: Pyrites - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2025