JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #78 - January/February 2013 - 19

turers in this region. North
America and Mexico still hold
20% of this production.

Consumption
The worldwide consumption of
glass fibre is estimated at 4.16
million tons (MT) for 2012
with the following distribution

by volume: Asia 1.6 MT, North
America 1.34 MT, Europe 0.87
MT and only 0.28 MT for the
rest of the world (see Figure 1).
The distribution per sector (see
Figure 2) shows that building
and construction is the largest
application sector in Asia, at

Matching supply
and demand

33.6%, followed by electrical
and electronics (with a large
share for export).

As usual, production capacity
is greater than the demand.
The same phenomenon can
be seen for carbon fibre. We
should bear in mind that we are
referring to nominal capacities
for the offer. n

In America and Europe,
transportation unsurprisingly
remains the main application
sector, accounting for about
30% of glass consumption.

Carbon fibre production :
many investments and projects
Carbon fibre manufacturing demands substantial capital investment and R&D resources.
Every single step in the manufacturing process is crucial to the final quality of the fibre.
Since our last issue No. 65 in May-June 2011,
many new announcements have been made
both by established and new players concerning how they plan to address the forecast
increase in demand.

ll these players seem
optimistic, the established ones due to
their strong positions and the
newcomers who are striving to
attain the best quality possible.
In this issue we will review
Demand, Production capacities and all the new initiatives
since our last survey.

Demand
Carbon fibre consumption
forecasts are similar to those
we presented last year (see
JEC Composites Magazine
No. 65). Demand in 2012 and
2015 should be 42,000 tons
and 67,000 tons respectively.
The Sports & Leisure sector
should take up around 7,000
tons per year and this figure
should remain constant up

to 2015. Demand from the
Aerospace industry should
increase from 8,000 tons in
2012 to 13,000 tons in 2013.
However growth should be
mainly driven by industrial
applications with an increase
in demand from 27,000 to
47,000 tons between 2012 and
2015 (Source: Courtesy of
SGL Group).
This increase in industrial
application demand should
come mainly from the Wind
Energy sector with the trend
for bigger and lighter blades
and from the Automotive
industry with the first carbon
fibre applications in middle
of the range vehicles. Pressure
vessels and cable cores should
also be booming markets.

Production Capacity
The global nameplate capacity
for PAN-based small Tow
( 24K), global nameplate
capacity should increase from
25,400 tons in 2012 to 43,200
in 2015. With an output coefficient of 0.9 (in this case lines
tend to be dedicated to only
one type of product), global
production of PAN-based
large tow should increase from
22,800 tons in 2012 to 38,800
tons in 2015 i.e. up 70% (See
Table 4). Zoltek plans to
double its capacities and SGL
to add 33% compared with
2011.

No78 January - February 2013 /

Nameplate capacities for
Pitch-based fibres should stay
relatively stable or increase
slightly over the next 3 years.
These fibres are mainly used
in niche markets so demand
should not expand that much.
This is why investment in
production capacities cannot
be compared to investments
in PAN-based fibres.

Matching supply
and Demand
So with PAN-based fibre
production amounting to
74,000 and 106,000 in 2012
and 2015 respectively this
might suggest a possibility of
production overcapacity (see
table 5). It is not easy to have
supply and demand match.
Every year, there is a huge
difference between expected
demand and production. A
few years ago there was a
shortage of Carbon Fibre.
Despite the fact that forecast
production volumes were
higher than forecast demand
by a few thousand tons. It
is very difficult to know the
volumes that actually leave
the plant and also very difficult to know what production
is on markets that are very
sensitive for strategic reasons
(Military & Defense, Nuclear
Enrichment, Oil & Gas…).
One thing is certain: substantial capital investment is
required to install a PAN precursor or carbon fiber line.

jec composites magazine 19

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #78 - January/February 2013

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