According to statistics, the total supply (output) of kaolin in China from 2017 to 2019 is 6.91 million tons, 6.65 million tons and 6.4 million tons respectively, with the total demand of 6.23 million tons, 6.38 million tons and 6.51 million tons, which gradually shows the situation of short supply. The main reason is that the supply side is closed down under the push of strict environmental protection law enforcement and supply side reform. The environmental protection standards of small and medium-sized mines are difficult, and the overall supply of the industry is declining. If the market trend is developed as mentioned above, it is expected that the domestic kaolin demand will reach about 7.5 million tons by 2025, and the contradiction between supply and demand will be more prominent.
At present, domestic ceramics, paper making, coating and refractory are the traditional demand areas of kaolin. In 2019, the demand for kaolin in ceramic field is about 3.694 million tons, the demand of paper industry is 760000 tons, the demand of coating industry is 65000 tons, and the demand for refractory is 558000 tons.
However, the above-mentioned areas are also facing the situation of mature industry development and the decline of market space growth. The new application field of kaolin is expanding continuously, and the indicators of kaolin are required in new fields such as catalyst, cosmetics, medicine and military industry. In a word, the demand for kaolin in downstream application will gradually concentrate on medium and high-grade products with better physical and chemical indexes. In the case of scarce high-quality resources, kaolin deep processing is the future development trend.
1. Kaolin for medical use
As a good filler and auxiliary material, medical kaolin has important application in the fields of medical supplies seasoning, medical auxiliary materials, hemostatic materials and so on. From 2016 to 2020, the demand for medical kaolin in China increased from 20000 tons to 160000 tons, with an annual composite growth rate of 51.57%.
2. Super fine kaolin
The special fine kaolin is mainly used in advanced electronic components, and the representative products are 5g ceramic filter and multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC). In 5g field, the peak period of construction is 2020-2023. The number of 5g base stations is about 1.5 times of 4G base stations, nearly 8.5 million. According to the estimation of 64 filters per base station, the market demand of ceramic medium filters is 1.6 billion. In addition, MLCC is one of the largest and fastest-growing chip components in the world, including 120billion mobile phone demand per month, 100billion vehicles MLCC monthly, 150billion in household appliances, PC, servers and security, and 100billion in other fields.
Driven by the strong demand of 5g, new energy vehicles and IOT, it is expected that the demand of domestic super fine kaolin will rise from 200000 tons to 310000 tons in 2019-2023, with an annual composite growth rate of 9.16%.
3. Kaolin for cosmetics
In the cosmetics field, kaolin is used in cosmetics such as shampoo, facial cleanser, ordinary facial mask, cleansing cream, etc. to cosmetics such as cream and cosmetics. It can be used for filling materials and in formula. From 2016 to 2020, the demand for domestic cosmetics grade kaolin increased from 40000 tons to 300000 tons, with an annual compound growth rate of 49.63%.
4. Kaolin for paper making
In terms of paper kaolin, white board paper and copper paper are still in high demand in the field of life and packaging. Kaolin can make the paper have good covering performance and coating luster, and increase whiteness and printing suitability. From 2016 to 2020, the demand of domestic paper grade kaolin increased from 520000 tons to 680000 tons, with an annual composite growth rate of 5.51%.
It is worth noting that the import rate of kaolin in domestic paper industry has been at a high level of 80% - 85% for a long time. Although the growth rate of paper market tends to be stable, there is still a large space for import substitution.