Affected by the factors such as slowdown in growth rates of downstream sectors like iron and steel, building materials, and glass as well as the reduced demand of refractories for infrastructure construction, China's refractory materials production in 2012 fell 4.43% over the previous year to 28.1891 million tons, of which, magnesia bricks, magnesium carbon & alumina magnesia carbon, and siliceous brick dropped sharply, down 15.94%, 8.45% and 8.37% YoY respectively.
In terms of export in 2012, both volume and value of refractory raw materials fell down, but refractory products broke the 2-million-ton mark again, climbing 4.4% YoY to 2.0397 million tons; export price even increased by 7.08%.
With respect to the product, China has been promoting the development of high-quality energy-efficient unshaped refractories. In 2012, the proportion of unshaped refractories in the total refractories production there firstly exceeded 40%, but compared with industrially advanced countries, the proportion is still lower, the goal is to hit 60% in 2020.
In addition, R & D of chrome-free refractories is also the focus of industry development. So far, Ruitai Materials Technology, Zibo Luzhong Refractory, etc. in cement kiln refractories, Qinghua Refractories, Zhejiang Jinlei Refractories, etc. in refractories for AOD furnace, Luoyang Institute of Refractories Research (LIRR), Shangyu Zili Corp New Material Co., Ltd (Zili Corp), etc. in refractories for RH furnace have made many successful attempts, followed by vigorous promotion.
