2024-10-09 22:05:00
After water, it is the second most exploited natural resource in the world. Sand is a particularly consumed raw material, with 50 billion tons per year, which has consequences for the environment and the seabed. The market has been in full restructuring for several years.
Despite the sharply increasing demand, it is difficult to estimate the amount of sand extracted from the ground each year. Unlike other commodities, for example, there is no regulatory agency. But we can still get a pretty good idea, because sand is widely used in the production of cement. And in this area global demand has tripled in thirty years.
Read alsoThe UN launches a tool to monitor the exploitation of “gigantic” volumes of sand
A regionalized market
To understand this you need to go to Asia, more specifically to Chinese. Driven by the increase in population, the construction sector has developed and with it the cement sector. A phenomenon found in many other Asian countries such as India. To meet their construction needs, these countries import more and more sand and rely mainly on their neighbors: long-distance transportation costs are very high.
Thus, in recent years, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia have established themselves as essential players, according to a study published on December 29 by the Global Sovereign Advisory, replacing the United States, once one of the region’s main exporters. Washington has in fact lost interest in this market, preferring to trade with its Canadian neighbor.
A profitable black market
This rush to extract sand is not without consequences for the environment and in particular for the seabed. This is the consequence of the dredging that is developing and which represents between 4 and 8 billion tons per year, depending on the United Nations Environment Programme. Another impact of the increased demand for sand: the explosion of illicit trafficking. This black market is actually the third most profitable in the world, according to the NGO Global Financial Integrity.
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