calcium carbonate

World capacity of ground calcium carbonate (GCC) has expanded significantly over the last decade, reaching an estimated 56.5Mtpy for all grades in 2004. Much of this increase is devoted to the production of fillers and coatings for paper as papermakers have switched to a neutral or alkali processing environment. However, increasing demand for GCC derived from high brightness marble has led to some producers shipping high brightness marble to GCC plants close to end use markets. The plastics industry is the second largest user of GCC, accounting for an estimated 10.2Mtpy of demand in 2004. Demand is increasingly concentrated in Asia, largely as a result of growth in the Chinese market. The very steep increase in GCC production and consumption in the last decade in Western Europe is likely to begin to slow, as it is already established as the major pigment used in the paper industry. There is still some room for replacement of kaolin by GCC in the USA, but this is restricted in some areas by a lack of good quality marble. The major growth area for the next five years will be in Asia, particularly China, where new capacity is likely to take the form of satellite plants of paper mills.